Auto Scale TextView Text to Fit within Bounds

Question

I'm looking for an optimal way to resize wrapping text in a TextView so that it will fit within its getHeight and getWidth bounds. I'm not simply looking for a way to wrap the text- I want to make sure it both wraps and is small enough to fit entirely on the screen.

I've seen a few cases on StackOverflow where auto resizing was needed, but they are either very special cases with hack solutions, have no solution, or involve re-drawing the TextView recursively until it is small enough (which is memory intense and forces the user to watch the text shrink step-by-step with every recursion).

But I'm sure somebody out there has found a good solution that doesn't involve what I'm doing: writing several heavy routines that parse and measure the text, resize the text, and repeat until a suitably small size has been found.

What routines does TextView use to wrap the text? Couldn't those be somehow used to predict whether text will be small enough?

tl;dr: is there a best-practice way to auto-resize a TextView to fit, wrapped, in its getHeight and getWidth bounds?

Answer 1

I just created the following method (based on the ideas of Chase) which might help you if you want to draw text to any canvas:

private static void drawText(Canvas canvas, int xStart, int yStart,
        int xWidth, int yHeigth, String textToDisplay,
        TextPaint paintToUse, float startTextSizeInPixels,
        float stepSizeForTextSizeSteps) {

    // Text view line spacing multiplier
    float mSpacingMult = 1.0f;
    // Text view additional line spacing
    float mSpacingAdd = 0.0f;
    StaticLayout l = null;
    do {
        paintToUse.setTextSize(startTextSizeInPixels);
        startTextSizeInPixels -= stepSizeForTextSizeSteps;
        l = new StaticLayout(textToDisplay, paintToUse, xWidth,
                Alignment.ALIGN_NORMAL, mSpacingMult, mSpacingAdd, true);
    } while (l.getHeight() > yHeigth);

    int textCenterX = xStart + (xWidth / 2);
    int textCenterY = (yHeigth - l.getHeight()) / 2;

    canvas.save();
    canvas.translate(textCenterX, textCenterY);
    l.draw(canvas);
    canvas.restore();
}

This could be used e.g. in any onDraw() method of any custom view.

Answer 2

From June 2018 Android officially started supporting this feature for Android 4.0 (API level 14) and higher.
Check it out at: Autosizing TextViews

With Android 8.0 (API level 26) and higher:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<TextView
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="200dp"
    android:autoSizeTextType="uniform"
    android:autoSizeMinTextSize="12sp"
    android:autoSizeMaxTextSize="100sp"
    android:autoSizeStepGranularity="2sp" />

Programmatically:

setAutoSizeTextTypeUniformWithConfiguration(int autoSizeMinTextSize, int autoSizeMaxTextSize, 
        int autoSizeStepGranularity, int unit)

textView.setAutoSizeTextTypeUniformWithConfiguration(
                1, 17, 1, TypedValue.COMPLEX_UNIT_DIP);

Android versions prior to Android 8.0 (API level 26):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent">

  <TextView
      android:layout_width="match_parent"
      android:layout_height="200dp"
      app:autoSizeTextType="uniform"
      app:autoSizeMinTextSize="12sp"
      app:autoSizeMaxTextSize="100sp"
      app:autoSizeStepGranularity="2sp" />

</LinearLayout>

Programmatically:

TextViewCompat.setAutoSizeTextTypeUniformWithConfiguration(
int autoSizeMinTextSize, int autoSizeMaxTextSize, int autoSizeStepGranularity, int unit) 

TextViewCompat.setAutoSizeTextTypeUniformWithConfiguration(textView, 1, 17, 1,
TypedValue.COMPLEX_UNIT_DIP);

Attention: TextView must have layout_width="match_parent" or absolute size!

Answer 3

I wrote a blog post about this.

I created a component called ResizableButton based on Kirill Grouchnikov's blog post about custom components used in the new android market app. I placed the src code here.

On the other hand, mosabua read my post and told me he was going to open source his implementation which was faster than mine. I hope he release it soon enough :)

Answer 4

Here's a simple solution that uses TextView itself with a TextChangedListened added to it:

expressionView = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.expressionView);
expressionView.addTextChangedListener(textAutoResizeWatcher(expressionView, 25, 55));

private TextWatcher textAutoResizeWatcher(final TextView view, final int MIN_SP, final int MAX_SP) {
    return new TextWatcher() {
        @Override
        public void beforeTextChanged(CharSequence charSequence, int i, int i1, int i2) {}

        @Override
        public void onTextChanged(CharSequence charSequence, int i, int i1, int i2) {}

        @Override
        public void afterTextChanged(Editable editable) {

            final int widthLimitPixels = view.getWidth() - view.getPaddingRight() - view.getPaddingLeft();
            Paint paint = new Paint();
            float fontSizeSP = pixelsToSp(view.getTextSize());
            paint.setTextSize(spToPixels(fontSizeSP));

            String viewText = view.getText().toString();

            float widthPixels = paint.measureText(viewText);

            // Increase font size if necessary.
            if (widthPixels < widthLimitPixels){
                while (widthPixels < widthLimitPixels && fontSizeSP <= MAX_SP){
                    ++fontSizeSP;
                    paint.setTextSize(spToPixels(fontSizeSP));
                    widthPixels = paint.measureText(viewText);
                }
                --fontSizeSP;
            }
            // Decrease font size if necessary.
            else {
                while (widthPixels > widthLimitPixels || fontSizeSP > MAX_SP) {
                    if (fontSizeSP < MIN_SP) {
                        fontSizeSP = MIN_SP;
                        break;
                    }
                    --fontSizeSP;
                    paint.setTextSize(spToPixels(fontSizeSP));
                    widthPixels = paint.measureText(viewText);
                }
            }

            view.setTextSize(fontSizeSP);
        }
    };
}

private float pixelsToSp(float px) {
    float scaledDensity = getResources().getDisplayMetrics().scaledDensity;
    return px/scaledDensity;
}

private float spToPixels(float sp) {
    float scaledDensity = getResources().getDisplayMetrics().scaledDensity;
    return sp * scaledDensity;
}

This approach will increase or decrease the font size as needed to fit the text, respecting the MIN_SP and MAX_SP bounds received as parameters.

Answer 5

My method is:

public void changeTextSize(int initialSize, TextView tv) {

    DisplayMetrics displayMetrics = new DisplayMetrics();
    getWindowManager().getDefaultDisplay().getMetrics(displayMetrics);
    double width = displayMetrics.widthPixels / displayMetrics.xdpi;
    double height = displayMetrics.heightPixels / displayMetrics.ydpi;

    Log.i("LOG", "The width of the tested emulator is: " + width);
    Log.i("LOG", "The height of the tested emulator is: " + height);

    double scale = Math.min(width / 2.25, height / 4.0); //See the logcat >>> width = 2.25 and heigt = 4.0
    tv.setTextSize(TypedValue.COMPLEX_UNIT_SP, (int) (initialSize * scale));

}

For example:

changeTextSize(16, findViewById(R.id.myTextView));
changeTextSize(12, findViewById(R.id.myEditText));

Answer 6

Thanks to Chase and onoelle, for the lazy programmers, let me post here a working version of their fantastic merged code, adapted on a Button, instead of a TextView.

Substitute all your Buttons (not ImageButtons) with AutoResizeTextButtons and the same boring problem is fixed for them too.

Here is the code. I just removed the imports.

/**
 *            DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO PUBLIC LICENSE
 *                    Version 2, December 2004
 * 
 * Copyright (C) 2004 Sam Hocevar <[e-mail]>
 * 
 * Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim or modified
 * copies of this license document, and changing it is allowed as long
 * as the name is changed.
 * 
 *            DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO PUBLIC LICENSE
 *   TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
 * 
 *  0. You just DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO.
 *  made better by onoelle
 *  adapted for button by beppi
 */

/**
 * Text Button that auto adjusts text size to fit within the view.
 * If the text size equals the minimum text size and still does not
 * fit, append with an ellipsis.
 * 
 * @author Chase Colburn
 * @since Apr 4, 2011
 */
public class AutoResizeTextButton extends Button {

    // Minimum text size for this text view
    public static final float MIN_TEXT_SIZE = 20;

    // Interface for resize notifications
    public interface OnTextResizeListener {
        public void onTextResize(Button textView, float oldSize, float newSize);
    }

    // Our ellipse string
    private static final String mEllipsis = "...";

    // Registered resize listener
    private OnTextResizeListener mTextResizeListener;

    // Flag for text and/or size changes to force a resize
    private boolean mNeedsResize = false;

    // Text size that is set from code. This acts as a starting point for resizing
    private float mTextSize;

    // Temporary upper bounds on the starting text size
    private float mMaxTextSize = 0;

    // Lower bounds for text size
    private float mMinTextSize = MIN_TEXT_SIZE;

    // Text view line spacing multiplier
    private float mSpacingMult = 1.0f;

    // Text view additional line spacing
    private float mSpacingAdd = 0.0f;

    // Add ellipsis to text that overflows at the smallest text size
    private boolean mAddEllipsis = true;

    // Default constructor override
    public AutoResizeTextButton(Context context) {
        this(context, null);
    }

    // Default constructor when inflating from XML file
    public AutoResizeTextButton(Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {
        this(context, attrs, 0);
    }

    // Default constructor override
    public AutoResizeTextButton(Context context, AttributeSet attrs, int defStyle) {
        super(context, attrs, defStyle);
        mTextSize = getTextSize();
    }

    /**
     * When text changes, set the force resize flag to true and reset the text size.
     */
    @Override
    protected void onTextChanged(final CharSequence text, final int start, final int before, final int after) {
        mNeedsResize = true;
        // Since this view may be reused, it is good to reset the text size
        resetTextSize();
    }

    /**
     * If the text view size changed, set the force resize flag to true
     */
    @Override
    protected void onSizeChanged(int w, int h, int oldw, int oldh) {
        if (w != oldw || h != oldh) {
            mNeedsResize = true;
        }
    }

    /**
     * Register listener to receive resize notifications
     * @param listener
     */
    public void setOnResizeListener(OnTextResizeListener listener) {
        mTextResizeListener = listener;
    }

    /**
     * Override the set text size to update our internal reference values
     */
    @Override
    public void setTextSize(float size) {
        super.setTextSize(size);
        mTextSize = getTextSize();
    }

    /**
     * Override the set text size to update our internal reference values
     */
    @Override
    public void setTextSize(int unit, float size) {
        super.setTextSize(unit, size);
        mTextSize = getTextSize();
    }

    /**
     * Override the set line spacing to update our internal reference values
     */
    @Override
    public void setLineSpacing(float add, float mult) {
        super.setLineSpacing(add, mult);
        mSpacingMult = mult;
        mSpacingAdd = add;
    }

    /**
     * Set the upper text size limit and invalidate the view
     * @param maxTextSize
     */
    public void setMaxTextSize(float maxTextSize) {
        mMaxTextSize = maxTextSize;
        requestLayout();
        invalidate();
    }

    /**
     * Return upper text size limit
     * @return
     */
    public float getMaxTextSize() {
        return mMaxTextSize;
    }

    /**
     * Set the lower text size limit and invalidate the view
     * @param minTextSize
     */
    public void setMinTextSize(float minTextSize) {
        mMinTextSize = minTextSize;
        requestLayout();
        invalidate();
    }

    /**
     * Return lower text size limit
     * @return
     */
    public float getMinTextSize() {
        return mMinTextSize;
    }

    /**
     * Set flag to add ellipsis to text that overflows at the smallest text size
     * @param addEllipsis
     */
    public void setAddEllipsis(boolean addEllipsis) {
        mAddEllipsis = addEllipsis;
    }

    /**
     * Return flag to add ellipsis to text that overflows at the smallest text size
     * @return
     */
    public boolean getAddEllipsis() {
        return mAddEllipsis;
    }

    /**
     * Reset the text to the original size
     */
    public void resetTextSize() {
        if(mTextSize > 0) {
            super.setTextSize(TypedValue.COMPLEX_UNIT_PX, mTextSize);
            mMaxTextSize = mTextSize;
        }
    }

    /**
     * Resize text after measuring
     */
    @Override
    protected void onLayout(boolean changed, int left, int top, int right, int bottom) {
        if(changed || mNeedsResize) {
            int widthLimit = (right - left) - getCompoundPaddingLeft() - getCompoundPaddingRight();
            int heightLimit = (bottom - top) - getCompoundPaddingBottom() - getCompoundPaddingTop();
            resizeText(widthLimit, heightLimit);
        }
        super.onLayout(changed, left, top, right, bottom);
    }


    /**
     * Resize the text size with default width and height
     */
    public void resizeText() {
        int heightLimit = getHeight() - getPaddingBottom() - getPaddingTop();
        int widthLimit = getWidth() - getPaddingLeft() - getPaddingRight();
        resizeText(widthLimit, heightLimit);
    }

    /**
     * Resize the text size with specified width and height
     * @param width
     * @param height
     */
    public void resizeText(int width, int height) {
        CharSequence text = getText();
        // Do not resize if the view does not have dimensions or there is no text
        if(text == null || text.length() == 0 || height <= 0 || width <= 0 || mTextSize == 0) {
            return;
        }

        // Get the text view's paint object
        TextPaint textPaint = getPaint();

        // Store the current text size
        float oldTextSize = textPaint.getTextSize();
        // If there is a max text size set, use the lesser of that and the default text size
        float targetTextSize = mMaxTextSize > 0 ? Math.min(mTextSize, mMaxTextSize) : mTextSize;

        // Get the required text height
        int textHeight = getTextHeight(text, textPaint, width, targetTextSize);

        // Until we either fit within our text view or we had reached our min text size, incrementally try smaller sizes
        while(textHeight > height && targetTextSize > mMinTextSize) {
            targetTextSize = Math.max(targetTextSize - 2, mMinTextSize);
            textHeight = getTextHeight(text, textPaint, width, targetTextSize);
        }

        // If we had reached our minimum text size and still don't fit, append an ellipsis
        if(mAddEllipsis && targetTextSize == mMinTextSize && textHeight > height) {
            // Draw using a static layout
            // modified: use a copy of TextPaint for measuring
            TextPaint paint = new TextPaint(textPaint);
            StaticLayout layout = new StaticLayout(text, paint, width, Alignment.ALIGN_NORMAL, mSpacingMult, mSpacingAdd, false);
            // Check that we have a least one line of rendered text
            if(layout.getLineCount() > 0) {
                // Since the line at the specific vertical position would be cut off,
                // we must trim up to the previous line
                int lastLine = layout.getLineForVertical(height) - 1;
                // If the text would not even fit on a single line, clear it
                if(lastLine < 0) {
                    setText("");
                }
                // Otherwise, trim to the previous line and add an ellipsis
                else {
                    int start = layout.getLineStart(lastLine);
                    int end = layout.getLineEnd(lastLine);
                    float lineWidth = layout.getLineWidth(lastLine);
                    float ellipseWidth = textPaint.measureText(mEllipsis);

                    // Trim characters off until we have enough room to draw the ellipsis
                    while(width < lineWidth + ellipseWidth) {
                        lineWidth = textPaint.measureText(text.subSequence(start, --end + 1).toString());
                    }
                    setText(text.subSequence(0, end) + mEllipsis);
                }
            }
        }

        // Some devices try to auto adjust line spacing, so force default line spacing
        // and invalidate the layout as a side effect
//      textPaint.setTextSize(targetTextSize);
     // modified: setting text size via this.setTextSize (instead of textPaint.setTextSize(targetTextSize))
        setTextSize(TypedValue.COMPLEX_UNIT_PX, targetTextSize);
        setLineSpacing(mSpacingAdd, mSpacingMult);

        // Notify the listener if registered
        if(mTextResizeListener != null) {
            mTextResizeListener.onTextResize(this, oldTextSize, targetTextSize);
        }

        // Reset force resize flag
        mNeedsResize = false;
    }

    // Set the text size of the text paint object and use a static layout to render text off screen before measuring
    private int getTextHeight(CharSequence source, TextPaint originalPaint, int width, float textSize) {
          // modified: make a copy of the original TextPaint object for measuring
          // (apparently the object gets modified while measuring, see also the
          // docs for TextView.getPaint() (which states to access it read-only)
        // Update the text paint object
          TextPaint paint = new TextPaint(originalPaint);
        paint.setTextSize(textSize);
        // Measure using a static layout
        StaticLayout layout = new StaticLayout(source, paint, width, Alignment.ALIGN_NORMAL, mSpacingMult, mSpacingAdd, true);
        return layout.getHeight();
    }

}

Usage:

put a AutoResizeTextButton inside your xml in replace of a normal Button, without changing anything else. Inside the onCreate() put (for example):

    myButton = (AutoResizeTextButton)getView().findViewById(id.myButton);
    myButton.setMinTextSize(8f);
    myButton.resizeText();