[android] Single TextView with multiple colored text

As the title says, I want to know is it possible to achieve two different colored characters in a single textview element.

Use SpannableBuilder class instead of HTML formatting where it possible because it more faster then HTML format parsing. See my own benchmark "SpannableBuilder vs HTML" on Github Thanks!

25 June 2020 by @canerkaseler

I would like to share Kotlin Answer :

fun setTextColor(tv:TextView, startPosition:Int, endPosition:Int, color:Int){
    val spannableStr = SpannableString(tv.text)

    val underlineSpan = UnderlineSpan()
    spannableStr.setSpan(
        underlineSpan,
        startPosition,
        endPosition,
        Spanned.SPAN_INCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE
    )

    val backgroundColorSpan = ForegroundColorSpan(this.resources.getColor(R.color.agreement_color))
    spannableStr.setSpan(
        backgroundColorSpan,
        startPosition,
        endPosition,
        Spanned.SPAN_INCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE
    )

    val styleSpanItalic = StyleSpan(Typeface.BOLD)
    spannableStr.setSpan(
        styleSpanItalic,
        startPosition,
        endPosition,
        Spanned.SPAN_INCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE
    )

    tv.text = spannableStr
}

After, call above function. You can call more than one:

setTextColor(textView, 0, 61, R.color.agreement_color)
setTextColor(textView, 65, 75, R.color.colorPrimary)

Output: You can see underline and different colors with each other.

@canerkaseler

if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= 24) {
     Html.fromHtml(String, flag) // for 24 API  and more
 } else {
     Html.fromHtml(String) // or for older API 
 }

for 24 API and more (flag)

public static final int FROM_HTML_MODE_COMPACT = 63;
public static final int FROM_HTML_MODE_LEGACY = 0;
public static final int FROM_HTML_OPTION_USE_CSS_COLORS = 256;
public static final int FROM_HTML_SEPARATOR_LINE_BREAK_BLOCKQUOTE = 32;
public static final int FROM_HTML_SEPARATOR_LINE_BREAK_DIV = 16;
public static final int FROM_HTML_SEPARATOR_LINE_BREAK_HEADING = 2;
public static final int FROM_HTML_SEPARATOR_LINE_BREAK_LIST = 8;
public static final int FROM_HTML_SEPARATOR_LINE_BREAK_LIST_ITEM = 4;
public static final int FROM_HTML_SEPARATOR_LINE_BREAK_PARAGRAPH = 1;
public static final int TO_HTML_PARAGRAPH_LINES_CONSECUTIVE = 0;
public static final int TO_HTML_PARAGRAPH_LINES_INDIVIDUAL = 1;

More Info

It's better to use the string in the strings file, as such:

    <string name="some_text">
<![CDATA[
normal color <font color=\'#06a7eb\'>special color</font>]]>
    </string>

Usage:

textView.text=HtmlCompat.fromHtml(getString(R.string.some_text), HtmlCompat.FROM_HTML_MODE_LEGACY)

Kotlin version of @Swapnil Kotwal's answer.

Android Studio 4.0.1, Kotlin 1.3.72

val greenText = SpannableString("This is green,")
greenText.setSpan(ForegroundColorSpan(resources.getColor(R.color.someGreenColor), null), 0, greenText.length, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE)
yourTextView.text = greenText

val yellowText = SpannableString("this is yellow, ")
yellowText.setSpan(ForegroundColorSpan(resources.getColor(R.color.someYellowColor), null), 0, yellowText.length, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE)
yourTextView.append(yellowText)

val redText = SpannableString("and this is red.")
redText.setSpan(ForegroundColorSpan(resources.getColor(R.color.someRedColor), null), 0, redText.length, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE)
yourTextView.append(redText)

I don't know, since when this is possible, but you can simply add <font> </font> to your string.xml which will automatically change the color per text. No need to add any additional code such as spannable text etc.

Example

<string name="my_formatted_text">
    <font color="#FF0707">THIS IS RED</font>
    <font color="#0B132B">AND NOW BLUE</font>
</string>

Using Kotlin and Extensions you can add colored text really easy and clean:

Create a file TextViewExtensions.kt with this content

fun TextView.append(string: String?, @ColorRes color: Int) {
    if (string == null || string.isEmpty()) {
        return
    }

    val spannable: Spannable = SpannableString(string)
    spannable.setSpan(
        ForegroundColorSpan(ContextCompat.getColor(context, color)),
        0,
        spannable.length,
        Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE
    )

    append(spannable)
}

Now is really easy to append text with color

textView.text = "" // Remove old text
textView.append("Red Text", R.color.colorAccent)
textView.append("White Text", android.R.color.white)

Basically is same as @Abdul Rizwan answer but using Kotlin, extensions, some validations and getting color inside extension.

Try this:

mBox = new TextView(context);
mBox.setText(Html.fromHtml("<b>" + title + "</b>" +  "<br />" + 
      "<small>" + description + "</small>" + "<br />" + 
      "<small>" + DateAdded + "</small>"));

Since API 24 you have FROM_HTML_OPTION_USE_CSS_COLORS so you can define colors in CSS instead of repeating it all time with font color=" Much clearer - when you have some html and you want to highlight some predefined tags - you just need to add CSS fragment at top of your html

Awesome answers! I was able to use Spannable to build rainbow colored text (so this could be repeated for any array of colors). Here's my method, if it helps anyone:

private Spannable buildRainbowText(String pack_name) {
        int[] colors = new int[]{Color.RED, 0xFFFF9933, Color.YELLOW, Color.GREEN, Color.BLUE, Color.RED, 0xFFFF9933, Color.YELLOW, Color.GREEN, Color.BLUE, Color.RED, 0xFFFF9933, Color.YELLOW, Color.GREEN, Color.BLUE, Color.RED, 0xFFFF9933, Color.YELLOW, Color.GREEN, Color.BLUE};
        Spannable word = new SpannableString(pack_name);
        for(int i = 0; i < word.length(); i++) {
            word.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(colors[i]), i, i+1, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
        }
        return word;
    }

And then I just setText(buildRainboxText(pack_name)); Note that all of the words I pass in are under 15 characters and this just repeats 5 colors 3 times - you'd want to adjust the colors/length of the array for your usage!

Use SpannableStringBuilder

SpannableStringBuilder builder = new SpannableStringBuilder();

SpannableString str1= new SpannableString("Text1");
str1.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(Color.RED), 0, str1.length(), 0);
builder.append(str1);

SpannableString str2= new SpannableString(appMode.toString());
str2.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(Color.GREEN), 0, str2.length(), 0);
builder.append(str2);

TextView tv = (TextView) view.findViewById(android.R.id.text1);
tv.setText( builder, TextView.BufferType.SPANNABLE);

You can prints lines with multiple colors without HTML as:

TextView textView = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.mytextview01);
Spannable word = new SpannableString("Your message");        

word.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(Color.BLUE), 0, word.length(), Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);

textView.setText(word);
Spannable wordTwo = new SpannableString("Your new message");        

wordTwo.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(Color.RED), 0, wordTwo.length(), Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
textView.append(wordTwo);

You can use Spannable to apply effects to your TextView:

Here is my example for colouring just the first part of a TextView text (while allowing you to set the color dynamically rather than hard coding it into a String as with the HTML example!)

    mTextView.setText("Red text is here", BufferType.SPANNABLE);
    Spannable span = (Spannable) mTextView.getText();
    span.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(0xFFFF0000), 0, "Red".length(),
             Spannable.SPAN_INCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);

In this example you can replace 0xFFFF0000 with a getResources().getColor(R.color.red)

I have done this, try it:

TextView textView=(TextView)findViewById(R.id.yourTextView);//init

//here I am appending two string into my textView with two diff colors.
//I have done from fragment so I used here getActivity(), 
//If you are trying it from Activity then pass className.this or this; 

textView.append(TextViewUtils.getColoredString(getString(R.string.preString),ContextCompat.getColor(getActivity(),R.color.firstColor)));
textView.append(TextViewUtils.getColoredString(getString(R.string.postString),ContextCompat.getColor(getActivity(),R.color.secondColor)));

Inside your TextViewUtils class add this method:

 /***
 *
 * @param mString this will setup to your textView
 * @param colorId  text will fill with this color.
 * @return string with color, it will append to textView.
 */
public static Spannable getColoredString(String mString, int colorId) {
    Spannable spannable = new SpannableString(mString);
    spannable.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(colorId), 0, spannable.length(), Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
    Log.d(TAG,spannable.toString());
    return spannable;
}

I have done this way:

Set Color on Text by passing String and color:

private String getColoredSpanned(String text, String color) {
    String input = "<font color=" + color + ">" + text + "</font>";
    return input;
}

Set text on TextView / Button / EditText etc by calling below code:

TextView:

TextView txtView = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.txtView);

Get Colored String:

String name = getColoredSpanned("Hiren", "#800000");
String surName = getColoredSpanned("Patel","#000080");

Set Text on TextView of two strings with different colors:

txtView.setText(Html.fromHtml(name+" "+surName));

Done

I have write down some code for other question which is similar to this one, but that question got duplicated so i can't answer there so i am just putting my code here if someone looking for same requirement.

It's not fully working code, you need to make some minor changes to get it worked.

Here is the code:

I've used @Graeme idea of using spannable text.

String colorfulText = "colorfulText";       
    Spannable span = new SpannableString(colorfulText);             

    for ( int i = 0, len = colorfulText.length(); i < len; i++ ){
        span.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(getRandomColor()), i, i+1,Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);                     
    }   

    ((TextView)findViewById(R.id.txtSplashscreenCopywrite)).setText(span);

Random Color Method:

  private int getRandomColor(){
        Random rnd = new Random();
        return Color.argb(255, rnd.nextInt(256), rnd.nextInt(256), rnd.nextInt(256));
    }