Set TextView text from html-formatted string resource in XML

Question

I have some fixed strings inside my strings xml  something like    lt resources gt       lt string name  somestring  gt           lt B gt Title lt  B gt  lt BR  gt          Content      lt  string gt   lt  resources gt    and in my layout I ve got a TextView which I d like to fill with the html-formatted string    lt TextView android id    id formattedtext  android layout width  fill parent  android layout height  wrap content  android text   string htmlstring   gt    if I do this  the content of formattedtext is just the content of somestring stripped of any html tags and thus unformatted   I know that it is possible to set the formatted text programmatically with    setText Html fromHtml somestring      because I use this in other parts of my program where it is working as expected   To call this function I need an Activity  but at the moment my layout is just a simple more or less static view in plain XML and I d prefer to leave it that way  to save me from the overhead of creating an Activity just to set some text   Am I overlooking something obvious  Is it not possible at all  Any help or workarounds welcome   Edit  Just tried some things and it seems that HTML formatting in xml has some restraints     tags must be written lowercase  some tags which are mentioned here  do not work  e g   lt br  gt   it s possible to use  n instead

User · Accepted Answer

Just in case anybody finds this  there s a nicer alternative that s not documented  I tripped over it after searching for hours  and finally found it in the bug list for the Android SDK itself   You CAN include raw HTML in strings xml  as long as you wrap it in    lt   CDATA     raw html       gt    Example    lt string name  nice html  gt   lt   CDATA   lt p gt This is a html-formatted string with  lt b gt bold lt  b gt  and  lt i gt italic lt  i gt  text lt  p gt   lt p gt This is another paragraph of the same string  lt  p gt     gt   lt  string gt    Then  in your code   TextView foo    TextView findViewById R id foo   foo setText Html fromHtml getString R string nice html       IMHO  this is several orders of magnitude nicer to work with  -

User · Answer

As the top answer here is suggesting something wrong  or at least too complicated   I feel this should be updated  although the question is quite old   When using String resources in Android  you just have to call getString      from Java code or use android text   string      in your layout XML   Even if you want to use HTML markup in your Strings  you don t have to change a lot   The only characters that you need to escape in your String resources are    double quotation mark    becomes    single quotation mark    becomes    ampersand   amp  becomes  amp  38  or  amp amp    That means you can add your HTML markup without escaping the tags    lt string name  my string  gt  lt b gt Hello World  lt  b gt  This is an example  lt  string gt    However  to be sure  you should only use  lt b gt    lt i gt  and  lt u gt  as they are listed in the documentation   If you want to use your HTML strings from XML  just keep on using android text   string       it will work fine   The only difference is that  if you want to use your HTML strings from Java code  you have to use getText      instead of getString      now  as the former keeps the style and the latter will just strip it off   It s as easy as that  No CDATA  no Html fromHtml        You will only need Html fromHtml      if you did encode your special characters in HTML markup  Use it with getString      then  This can be necessary if you want to pass the String to String format        This is all described in the docs as well   Edit   There is no difference between getText      with unescaped HTML  as I ve proposed  or CDATA sections and Html fromHtml        See the following graphic for a comparison

User · Answer

Android does not have a specification to indicate the type of resource string  e g  text plain or text html    There is a workaround  however  that will allow the developer to specify this within the XML file    Define a custom attribute to specify that the android text attribute is html  Use a subclassed TextView    Once you define these  you can express yourself with HTML in xml files without ever having to call setText Html fromHtml       again   I m rather surprised that this approach is not part of the API   This solution works to the degree that the Android studio simulator will display the text as rendered HTML     res values strings xml  the string resource as HTML    lt resources gt   lt string name  app name  gt TextViewEx lt  string gt   lt string name  string with html  gt  lt   CDATA          lt em gt Hello lt  em gt   lt strong gt World lt  strong gt       gt  lt  string gt   lt  resources gt    layout xml  only the relevant parts   Declare the custom attribute namespace  and add the android ex isHtml attribute   Also use the subclass of TextView    lt RelativeLayout     xmlns android ex  http   schemas android com apk res-auto      gt    lt tv twelvetone samples textviewex TextViewEx     android layout width  wrap content      android layout height  wrap content      android text   string string with html      android ex isHtml  true        gt    lt  RelativeLayout gt    res values attrs xml  define the custom attributes for the subclass     lt resources gt   lt declare-styleable name  TextViewEx  gt       lt attr name  isHtml  format  boolean   gt       lt attr name  android text    gt   lt  declare-styleable gt   lt  resources gt    TextViewEx java  the subclass of TextView    package tv twelvetone samples textviewex    import android content Context   import android content res TypedArray   import android support annotation Nullable   import android text Html   import android util AttributeSet   import android widget TextView   public TextViewEx Context context   Nullable AttributeSet attrs        super context  attrs       TypedArray a   context obtainStyledAttributes attrs  R styleable TextViewEx  0  0       try           boolean isHtml   a getBoolean R styleable TextViewEx isHtml  false           if  isHtml                String text   a getString R styleable TextViewEx android text               if  text    null                    setText Html fromHtml text                                  catch  Exception e            e printStackTrace          finally           a recycle

User · Answer

Escape your HTML tags       lt resources gt       lt string name  somestring  gt           amp lt B amp gt Title amp lt  B amp gt  amp lt BR  amp gt          Content      lt  string gt   lt  resources gt

User · Answer

I have another case when I have no chance to put CDATA into the xml as I receive the string HTML from a server   Here is what I get from a server    lt p gt The quick brown amp nbsp  lt br   gt  fox jumps amp nbsp  lt br   gt   over the lazy dog lt br   gt   lt  p gt    It seems to be more complicated but the solution is much simpler   private TextView textView   protected void onCreate Bundle savedInstanceState           textView    TextView  findViewById R id text     need to define in your layout String htmlFromServer   getHTMLContentFromAServer     textView setText Html fromHtml htmlFromServer  toString          Hope it helps   Linh

User · Answer

String termsOfCondition   lt font color  cc0029 gt Terms of Use  lt  font gt      String commma   lt font color  000000 gt    lt  font gt      String privacyPolicy   lt font color  cc0029 gt Privacy Policy  lt  font gt      Spanned text Html fromHtml  I am of legal age and I have read  understood  agreed and accepted the   termsOfCondition commma privacyPolicy           secondCheckBox setText text

User · Answer

Latest update   Html fromHtml string    deprecated after Android N versions     Following code give support to android N and above versions     if  Build VERSION SDK INT  gt   Build VERSION CODES N    textView setText Html fromHtml yourHtmlString Html FROM HTML MODE LEGACY       else    textView setText Html fromHtml yourHtmlString

[html] Set TextView text from html-formatted string resource in XML

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