[android] Android TextView Text not getting wrapped

Can anyone tell me what's going wrong with the text? Text longer than one line doesn't wrap to the next line but goes beyond the screen.

Following is the code:

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent" 
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:orientation="horizontal" 
    android:padding="4dip">

    <LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent" 
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:orientation="vertical" 
        android:padding="4dip">

        <LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
            android:layout_width="fill_parent" 
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:orientation="horizontal" 
            android:padding="4dip">
            <TextView 
                android:id="@+id/reviewItemEntityName"
                android:layout_width="wrap_content" 
                android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                android:text="event/venue" 
                android:textColor="@color/maroon"
                android:singleLine="true" 
                android:ellipsize="end" 
                android:textSize="14sp"
                android:textStyle="bold" 
                android:layout_weight="1" />

            <ImageView 
                android:id="@+id/reviewItemStarRating"
                android:layout_width="wrap_content" 
                android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
                android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"
                android:src="@drawable/title_1_star" />
        </LinearLayout>

        <TextView 
            android:id="@+id/reviewItemDescription"
            android:layout_width="fill_parent" 
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:text="Description comes here" 
            android:textSize="12sp" 
            android:layout_weight="1"/>
    </LinearLayout>
</LinearLayout>

This question is related to android textview

The answer is


The only correct answer to this question is that you need to set the parents to a proper width (in this case FILL_PARENT, WRAP_CONTENT) and use android:layout_weight=1 for the textview that needs to be wrapped.

SingleLine is on by default so that won't make any changes.

A width set to 0px will work but is not a good solution.

Some example (in a tableview this time), using xml:

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    android:orientation="vertical">
    <TableLayout android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:stretchColumns="*"
        android:id="@+id/tableLayout1">
        <TableRow android:id="@+id/tableRow1" android:layout_width="fill_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content">
            <TextView android:text="test1" android:layout_width="fill_parent"
                android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:layout_weight="0" />
            <TextView android:layout_weight="1"
                android:text="test2 very long text that needs to be wrapped properly using layout_weight property and ignoring singleline since that is set by default..."
                android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="wrap_content" />
        </TableRow>     
    </TableLayout>
</LinearLayout>

If you want to set this in code you're looking for the layout_weight as a third parameter as in this example where it is set to 1:

row.setLayoutParams(new LayoutParams(LayoutParams.FILL_PARENT,
                LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT));
TextView label = new TextView(getApplicationContext());
label.setLayoutParams(new LayoutParams(LayoutParams.FILL_PARENT,
                LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT, 1f));

you have to use android:singleLine="false" in ur TextView tags.


Even-though this is an old thread, i'd like to share my experience as it helped me. My application was working fine for OS 2.0 & 4.0+ but for a HTC phone running OS 3.x the text was not wrapping. What worked for me was to include both of these tags.

android:maxLines="100"
android:scrollHorizontally="false"

If you eliminate either it was not working for only the os 3.0 device. "ellipsize" parameter had neutral effect. Here is the full textview tag below

<TextView
                android:id="@+id/cell_description"
                android:layout_width="fill_parent"
                android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                android:paddingTop="5dp"
                android:maxLines="100"
                android:scrollHorizontally="false"
                android:textStyle="normal"
                android:textSize="11sp"
                android:textColor="@color/listcell_detail"/>

Hope this would help someone.


Set the height of the text view android:minHeight="some pixes" or android:width="some pixels". It will solve the problem.


I put this attribute:

android:inputType="textMultiLine"

into my TextView and it has wrapping line and user can "Enter" for a new line.

============================================================

When you come to this post, you may want to create a Big TextView which can display multiple lines so these attributes may also needed

android:layout_height="Xdp" //where X is a number depends on how big Textview you want
android:gravity="top" //in order to make your text start from the top of your TextView.

I think it depends on the particular combination of layouts in your display. Some flags may get overridden or ignored. I have a TabHost with tabs, each tab is a list of tables. So it is a tab of ListView, each row being a TableLayout of TextView. I tried the fixes listed above and none of them worked.


I added a \n in the middle of my string and it looked okay.


I finally managed to add some pixels to the height of the TextView to solve this issue.

First you need to actually get the height of the TextView. It's not straightforward because it's 0 before it's already painted.

Add this code to onCreate:

mReceiveInfoTextView = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.receive_info_txt);
if (mReceiveInfoTextView != null) { 
    final ViewTreeObserver observer = mReceiveInfoTextView.getViewTreeObserver();
    observer.addOnGlobalLayoutListener(new ViewTreeObserver.OnGlobalLayoutListener() {
        @Override
        public void onGlobalLayout() {
            int height = mReceiveInfoTextView.getHeight();
            int addHeight = getResources().getDimensionPixelSize(R.dimen.view_add_height);
            mReceiveInfoTextView.setHeight(height + addHeight);

            // Remove the listener if possible
            ViewTreeObserver viewTreeObserver = mReceiveInfoTextView.getViewTreeObserver();
            if (viewTreeObserver.isAlive()) {
                viewTreeObserver.removeOnGlobalLayoutListener(this);
            }
        }
    });
}

You need to add this line to dimens.xml

<dimen name="view_add_height">10dp</dimen>

Hope it helps.


I just removed android:lines="1" and added android:maxLines="2", this got the text to wrap automatically. The problem was the android:lines attribute. That causes the text wrapping to not happen.

I didnt have to use maxEms or singleLine="false" (deprecated API) to fix this.


I know, that in question it is correct, but in my case, the problem was in setting textSize property in 'dp' - I've changed it to 'sp' and it works fine.


Increase the height i.e.. android:height="Some size" , it is working fine for me.


It is enough to use in your xml file.

android:singleLine="false".

Hope it will work.

All the best!


You must use 2 parameters :

  • android:ellipsize="none" : the text is not cut on textview width

  • android:scrollHorizontally="false" the text wraps on as many lines as necessary


I've spent hours to figure out that in the text I was trying to display contained a single quote (in string.xml) so I just escaped it with a backslash and it worked nicely => the height of the TextView was correctly wrapping text:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:paddingLeft="16dp"
    android:paddingRight="16dp"
    android:paddingTop="16dp"
    tools:context=".MainActivity">

    <TextView
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:fontFamily="sans-serif-smallcaps"
        android:text="@string/instructions"
        android:textAlignment="center"
        android:textSize="18sp"
        android:textStyle="bold" />

    <EditText
        android:id="@+id/keyword"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="@string/defaultKeyword"
        android:textSize="22sp"
        />

I had a similar problem where were my two horizontally weighted TextViews didn't wrap the text. I later found out that the issue was because my viewparents parent had wrap_content instead of match_parent.


I'm an Android (and GUI) beginner, but have lots of experience with software. I've gone through a few of the tutorials, and this is my understanding:

layout_width and layout_height are attributes of the TextView. They are instructions for how the TextView should shape itself, they aren't referring to how to handle the content within the TextView.

If you use "fill_parent", you are saying that the TextView should shape itself relative to it's parent view, it should fill it.

If you use "wrap_content", you are saying that you should ignore the parent view, and let the contents of the TextView define it's shape.

I think this is the confusing point. "wrap_content" isn't telling the TextView how to manage it's contents (to wrap the lines), it's telling it that it should shape itself relative to it's contents. In this case, with no new line characters, it shapes itself so that all the text is on a single line (which unfortunately is overflowing the parent).

I think you want it to fill the parent horizontally, and to wrap it's contents vertically.


In my case, with a TableRow > ScrollView > TextView nesting, I solved the problem by setting android:layout_width to fill_parent on TableRow, and to wrap_content on ScrollView and TextView.


One of your layout parameters is wrong in your code. In the first TextView

android:layout_width="wrap_content"

change to

android:layout_width="fill_parent" 

The text that out of screen width size will wrap to next line and set android:singleline="false".


To wrap the text and to put the text in next line we sholud use the "\n" i.e new line character in the layout xml file and check tht change on the emulator not on the layout screen.


I could not get any of these solutions working when using a TableLayout>TableRow>TextView. I then found TableLayout.shrinkColumns="*". The only other solution that worked was forcing the TextView to layout_width:250px etc but i don't like forcing widths like that.

Try something like this if working with tables.

            <TableLayout 
                android:layout_width="fill_parent"
                android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                android:shrinkColumns="*">

Note you need shrinkColumns="*"

This is obviously within a <LinearLayout>. So something like <LinearLayout> <TableLayout> <TableRow> <TextView>

references:

TableLayout

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=4000

Hope that helps someone.


I used android:ems="23" to solve my problem. Just replace 23 with the best value in your case.

<TextView
        android:id="@+id/msg"
        android:ems="23"
        android:text="ab ab ab ab ab ab ab ab ab ab ab ab ab ab ab ab ab ab ab ab ab ab ab ab ab ab ab ab ab "
        android:textColor="@color/white"
        android:textStyle="bold"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>

I'm using constraint layout mostly.

1) android:layout_width="match_parent" = tries to stretch to meet edges

2) android:layout_width="wrap_content" = based solely on the input text without regard for other views nearby. for example adding android:textAlignment="center" will change the shape of the text

3) android:padding="12dp" android:layout_width="0dp" android:layout_weight="1" android:singleLine="false"

= The text will fold to accommodate nearby layouts without regard to the text itself


For my case removing input type did the trick, i was using android:inputType="textPostalAddress" due to that my textview was sticked to one line and was not wrapping, removing this fixed the issue.