'Set color of TextView span in Android

Is it possible to set the color of just span of text in a TextView?

I would like to do something similar to the Twitter app, in which a part of the text is blue. See image below:

Solution 1:^[1]

Another answer would be very similar, but wouldn't need to set the text of the TextView twice

TextView TV = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.mytextview01);

Spannable wordtoSpan = new SpannableString("I know just how to whisper, And I know just how to cry,I know just where to find the answers");        

wordtoSpan.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(Color.BLUE), 15, 30, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);

TV.setText(wordtoSpan);

Solution 2:^[2]

Here is a little help function. Great for when you have multiple languages!

private void setColor(TextView view, String fulltext, String subtext, int color) {
    view.setText(fulltext, TextView.BufferType.SPANNABLE);
    Spannable str = (Spannable) view.getText();
    int i = fulltext.indexOf(subtext);
    str.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(color), i, i + subtext.length(), Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
}

Solution 3:^[3]

I always find visual examples helpful when trying to understand a new concept.

Background Color

SpannableString spannableString = new SpannableString("Hello World!");
BackgroundColorSpan backgroundSpan = new BackgroundColorSpan(Color.YELLOW);
spannableString.setSpan(backgroundSpan, 0, spannableString.length(), Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
textView.setText(spannableString);

Foreground Color

SpannableString spannableString = new SpannableString("Hello World!");
ForegroundColorSpan foregroundSpan = new ForegroundColorSpan(Color.RED);
spannableString.setSpan(foregroundSpan, 0, spannableString.length(), Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
textView.setText(spannableString);

Combination

SpannableString spannableString = new SpannableString("Hello World!");
ForegroundColorSpan foregroundSpan = new ForegroundColorSpan(Color.RED);
BackgroundColorSpan backgroundSpan = new BackgroundColorSpan(Color.YELLOW);
spannableString.setSpan(foregroundSpan, 0, 8, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
spannableString.setSpan(backgroundSpan, 3, spannableString.length(), Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
textView.setText(spannableString);

Further Study

Solution 4:^[4]

If you want more control, you might want to check the TextPaint class. Here is how to use it:

final ClickableSpan clickableSpan = new ClickableSpan() {
    @Override
    public void onClick(final View textView) {
        //Your onClick code here
    }

    @Override
    public void updateDrawState(final TextPaint textPaint) {
        textPaint.setColor(yourContext.getResources().getColor(R.color.orange));
        textPaint.setUnderlineText(true);
    }
};

Solution 5:^[5]

Set your TextView´s text spannable and define a ForegroundColorSpan for your text.

TextView textView = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.mytextview01);    
Spannable wordtoSpan = new SpannableString("I know just how to whisper, And I know just how to cry,I know just where to find the answers");          
wordtoSpan.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(Color.BLUE), 15, 30, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);    
textView.setText(wordtoSpan);

Solution 6:^[6]

Another way that could be used in some situations is to set the link color in the properties of the view that is taking the Spannable.

If your Spannable is going to be used in a TextView, for example, you can set the link color in the XML like this:

<TextView
    android:id="@+id/myTextView"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:textColorLink="@color/your_color"
</TextView>

You can also set it in the code with:

TextView tv = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.myTextView);
tv.setLinkTextColor(your_color);

Solution 7:^[7]

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");

Set Text on TextView:

txtView.setText(Html.fromHtml(name));

Done

Solution 8:^[8]

Here's a Kotlin Extension Function I have for this

    fun TextView.setColouredSpan(word: String, color: Int) {
        val spannableString = SpannableString(text)
        val start = text.indexOf(word)
        val end = text.indexOf(word) + word.length
        try {
            spannableString.setSpan(ForegroundColorSpan(color), start, end,Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE)
            text = spannableString
        } catch (e: IndexOutOfBoundsException) {
         println("'$word' was not not found in TextView text")
    }
}

Use it after you have set your text to the TextView like so

private val blueberry by lazy { getColor(R.color.blueberry) }

textViewTip.setColouredSpan("Warning", blueberry)

Solution 9:^[9]

String text = "I don't like Hasina.";
textView.setText(spannableString(text, 8, 14));

private SpannableString spannableString(String text, int start, int end) {
    SpannableString spannableString = new SpannableString(text);
    ColorStateList redColor = new ColorStateList(new int[][]{new int[]{}}, new int[]{0xffa10901});
    TextAppearanceSpan highlightSpan = new TextAppearanceSpan(null, Typeface.BOLD, -1, redColor, null);

    spannableString.setSpan(highlightSpan, start, end, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
    spannableString.setSpan(new BackgroundColorSpan(0xFFFCFF48), start, end, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
    spannableString.setSpan(new RelativeSizeSpan(1.5f), start, end, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);

    return spannableString;
}

Output:

Solution 10:^[10]

There's a factory for creating the Spannable, and avoid the cast, like this:

Spannable span = Spannable.Factory.getInstance().newSpannable("text");

Solution 11:^[11]

Just to add to the accepted answer, as all the answers seem to talk about android.graphics.Color only: what if the color I want is defined in res/values/colors.xml?

For example, consider Material Design colors defined in colors.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <color name="md_blue_500">#2196F3</color>
</resources>

(android_material_design_colours.xml is your best friend)

Then use ContextCompat.getColor(getContext(), R.color.md_blue_500) where you would use Color.BLUE, so that:

wordtoSpan.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(Color.BLUE), 15, 30, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);

becomes:

wordtoSpan.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(ContextCompat.getColor(getContext(), R.color.md_blue_500)), 15, 30, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);

Where I found that:

Working with spans in Android – Michael Spitsin – Medium

Solution 12:^[12]

Using kotlin-ktx, you can achieve it easily

        bindView?.oneTimePasswordTitle?.text = buildSpannedString {
        append("One Time Password ")
        inSpans(
            ForegroundColorSpan(ContextCompat.getColor(bindView?.oneTimePasswordTitle?.context!!,R.color.colorPrimaryText))
        ){
            append(" (As Registered Email)")
        }

    }

Solution 13:^[13]

Some answers here aren't up to date. Because, you will (in most of cases) add a custom clic action on your link.

Besides, as provided by the documentation help, your spanned string link color will have a default one. "The default link color is the theme's accent color or android:textColorLink if this attribute is defined in the theme".

Here is the way to do it safely.

 private class CustomClickableSpan extends ClickableSpan {

    private int color = -1;

    public CustomClickableSpan(){
        super();
        if(getContext() != null) {
            color = ContextCompat.getColor(getContext(), R.color.colorPrimaryDark);
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void updateDrawState(@NonNull TextPaint ds) {
        ds.setColor(color != -1 ? color : ds.linkColor);
        ds.setUnderlineText(true);
    }

    @Override
    public void onClick(@NonNull View widget) {
    }
}

Then to use it.

   String text = "my text with action";
    hideText= new SpannableString(text);
    hideText.setSpan(new CustomClickableSpan(){

        @Override
        public void onClick(@NonNull View widget) {
            // your action here !
        }

    }, 0, text.length(), Spanned.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
    yourtextview.setText(hideText);
    // don't forget this ! or this will not work !
    yourtextview.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());

Hope this will strongly help !

Solution 14:^[14]

create textview in ur layout

paste this code in ur MainActivity

TextView textview=(TextView)findViewById(R.id.textviewid);
Spannable spannable=new SpannableString("Hello my name is sunil");
spannable.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(Color.BLUE), 0, 5, 
Spannable.SPAN_INCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
textview.setText(spannable);
//Note:- the 0,5 is the size of colour which u want to give the strring
//0,5 means it give colour to starting from h and ending with space i.e.(hello), if you want to change size and colour u can easily

Solution 15:^[15]

Below works perfectly for me

    tvPrivacyPolicy = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.tvPrivacyPolicy);
    String originalText = (String)tvPrivacyPolicy.getText();
    int startPosition = 15;
    int endPosition = 31;

    SpannableString spannableStr = new SpannableString(originalText);
    UnderlineSpan underlineSpan = new UnderlineSpan();
    spannableStr.setSpan(underlineSpan, startPosition, endPosition, Spanned.SPAN_INCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);

    ForegroundColorSpan backgroundColorSpan = new ForegroundColorSpan(Color.BLUE);
    spannableStr.setSpan(backgroundColorSpan, startPosition, endPosition, Spanned.SPAN_INCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);

    StyleSpan styleSpanItalic  = new StyleSpan(Typeface.BOLD);

    spannableStr.setSpan(styleSpanItalic, startPosition, endPosition, Spanned.SPAN_INCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);

    tvPrivacyPolicy.setText(spannableStr);

Output for above code

Solution 16:^[16]

From the developer docs, to change the color and size of a spannable:

1- create a class:

    class RelativeSizeColorSpan(size: Float,@ColorInt private val color: Int): RelativeSizeSpan(size) {

    override fun updateDrawState(textPaint: TextPaint?) {
        super.updateDrawState(textPaint)
        textPaint?.color = color
    } 
}

2 Create your spannable using that class:

    val spannable = SpannableStringBuilder(titleNames)
spannable.setSpan(
    RelativeSizeColorSpan(1.5f, Color.CYAN), // Increase size by 50%
    titleNames.length - microbe.name.length, // start
    titleNames.length, // end
    Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_INCLUSIVE
)

Solution 17:^[17]

You can use extension function in Kotlin

fun CharSequence.colorizeText(
    textPartToColorize: CharSequence,
    @ColorInt color: Int
): CharSequence = SpannableString(this).apply {
    val startIndexOfText = this.indexOf(textPartToColorize.toString())
    setSpan(ForegroundColorSpan(color), startIndexOfText, startIndexOfText.plus(textPartToColorize.length), 0)
}

Usage:

val colorizedText = "this text will be colorized"
val myTextToColorize = "some text, $colorizedText continue normal text".colorizeText(colorizedText,ContextCompat.getColor(context, R.color.someColor))
viewBinding.myTextView.text = myTextToColorize

Solution 18:^[18]

Now you can use the CodeView library to highlight patterns with different colors easily, for example, to highlight all URLs inside the text with the blue color you just need to write

CodeView codeView = findViewById(R.id.codeview);
codeView.addSyntaxPattern(Patterns.WEB_URL, Color.BLUE);
codeView.setTextHighlighted(text);

CodeView Repository URL: https://github.com/amrdeveloper/codeview

Solution 19:^[19]

I got the same issue.
@Dano's answer is absolutely correct. But it doesn't work for me.
After that, I found the issue I have added ClickableSpan. So it will change my color with another color (accent color)

Issue

SpannableStringBuilder will not change color and undline when you add a ClickableSpan after ForegroundColorSpan or UnderlineSpan.

Solution

1. With ClickableSpan

You can Override the updateDrawState method inside ClickableSpan.
In the updateDrawState method, you should remove the super callback.
After that, you should Modify your text paint as required.

2. Without ClickableSpan

Add ForegroundColorSpan to change the text color
Add UnderlineSpan to add underline in text.

Sources

This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Overflow and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Source: Stack Overflow

Solution	Source
Solution 1	Martin Marconcini
Solution 2	Ziem
Solution 3	Community
Solution 4	Ziem
Solution 5	Suragch
Solution 6	Dave
Solution 7
Solution 8
Solution 9
Solution 10	Thomas Emil Hansen
Solution 11	Antônio Medeiros
Solution 12	Ashwin Nirmale
Solution 13	Zhar
Solution 14	Akash Batham
Solution 15	Omkar
Solution 16	fullmoon
Solution 17	mtrakal
Solution 18	AmrDeveloper
Solution 19

'Set color of TextView span in Android

Solution 1:[1]

Solution 2:[2]

Solution 3:[3]

Background Color

Foreground Color

Combination

Further Study

Solution 4:[4]

Solution 5:[5]

Solution 6:[6]

Solution 7:[7]

Solution 8:[8]

Solution 9:[9]

Solution 10:[10]

Solution 11:[11]

Solution 12:[12]

Solution 13:[13]

Solution 14:[14]

Solution 15:[15]

Solution 16:[16]

Solution 17:[17]

Solution 18:[18]

Solution 19:[19]