Can I limit TextView's number of characters?

Question

What I have now is a ListView of TextView elements. each TextView element displays a text (the text length varies from 12 words to 100+). What I want is to make these TextViews display a portion of the text (let's say 20 word or roughly 170 chars).

How to limit the TextView to a fixed number of characters?

Booger · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-31T19:54:29.753

175

Here is an example. I limit the sizewith the maxLength attribute, limit it to a single line with maxLines attribute, then use the ellipsize=end to add a "..." automatically to the end of any line that has been cut-off.

<TextView 
    android:id="@+id/secondLineTextView" 
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
    android:maxLines="1" 
    android:maxLength="10" 
    android:ellipsize="end"/>

edited Mar 31 '14 at 19:54

answered Feb 05 '12 at 14:15

Booger

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2

"then use the ellipsize=marquee to add a "..." automatically to the end of any line" – Booger Feb 05 '12 at 14:27
Sounds promising. I'll give it a try. – iTurki Feb 05 '12 at 14:31
5

@Booger android:ellipsize="marquee" don't append ellipsis (...) at the end, rather, it covers the end of cut off text as a sign of limit. android:ellipsize="end" will add the ellipsis (...) at the end, while android:ellipsize="start" will append ellipsis at the start – ajdeguzman Feb 26 '14 at 05:58
@ajdeguzman what should i do, if i want the remaining text on the second line. I have made the maxLines = 2 and have not included the ellipsize parameter.I know there is something known as em also but i didnt get a clear explanation on how it works. – Sagar Devanga Aug 19 '15 at 08:01
I think layout_width has a relation to trigger ellipsize property. Well explained example, Please follow the [link](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9149846/can-i-limit-textviews-number-of-characters/61593663#61593663) – taranjeetsapra May 05 '20 at 06:47

Darko Petkovski · Answer 2 · 2015-02-28T09:36:30.703

9

If your not interested in xml solutions maybe you can do this:

String s="Hello world";
Textview someTextView;
someTextView.setText(getSafeSubstring(s, 5));
//the text of someTextView will be Hello

...

public String getSafeSubstring(String s, int maxLength){
  if(!TextUtils.isEmpty(s)){
    if(s.length() >= maxLength){
      return s.substring(0, maxLength);
    }
  }
  return s;
}

edited Feb 28 '15 at 09:36

answered Sep 27 '14 at 07:56

Darko Petkovski

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score 8 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 27 '14 at 07:42

8

Use below code in TextView

 android:maxLength="65"

Enjoy...

answered Sep 27 '14 at 07:42

Ganesh Katikar

2,532
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score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 30 '18 at 07:39

3

I did this using the maxEms attribute.

 <TextView
    android:ellipsize="end"
    android:maxEms="10"/>

answered Jul 30 '18 at 07:39

pratham kesarkar

3,606
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score 2 · Answer 5 · answered May 04 '20 at 13:41

I am sharing an example where I have set maxLength=1 i.e. limit it to a single line with maxLines attribute, then use the ellipsize=end to add a "..." automatically to the end of any line that has been cut-off.

Please Note: layout_width which is 120dp i.e. after 120dp any text exceeding will triggrer "ellipsize=end" property

paste the below code directly to check.

<TextView
    android:layout_width="120dp"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:ellipsize="end"
    android:maxLines="1"
    android:maxLength="40"
    android:text="Can I limit TextView's number of characters?"
    android:textColor="@color/black"
    android:textSize="12sp"
    android:textStyle="bold" />

.

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 05 '12 at 14:19

You can use setEllipsize method of TextView class http://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/TextView.html#setEllipsize(android.text.TextUtils.TruncateAt)

With the constants of TextUtil class for added the suspension points http://developer.android.com/reference/android/text/TextUtils.TruncateAt.html

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Feb 06 '20 at 12:21

Programmatic Kotlin.

Cut off the start of the text:

 val maxChars = 10000
 if (helloWorldTextView.text.length > maxChars) {
      helloWorldTextView.text = helloWorldTextView.text.takeLast(maxChars)
 }

Cut off the end of the text:

 val maxChars = 10000
 if (helloWorldTextView.text.length > maxChars) {
      helloWorldTextView.text = helloWorldTextView.text.take(maxChars)
 }

score -1 · Answer 8 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:10

-1

As mentioned in https://stackoverflow.com/a/6165470/1818089 & https://stackoverflow.com/a/6239007/1818089, using

android:minEms="2"

should be enough to achieve the goal stated above.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:10

Community

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answered Mar 28 '17 at 08:09

computingfreak

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score -4 · Answer 9 · answered Feb 05 '12 at 14:07

-4

you can extend the TextView class and overwrite the setText() function. In this function you check for text length or word cound.

answered Feb 05 '12 at 14:07

Andreas

1,597
14
17

Better than counting the text length or the word cound a better way would be to use the "maxLines" attribute along with "ellipsize" attribute to attain the desired effect. – kapilgm Nov 23 '15 at 09:13

Can I limit TextView's number of characters?

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