Android TextView Text not getting wrapped

Question

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:

Answer 1

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".

Answer 2

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"
        />

Answer 3

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));

Answer 4

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.

Answer 5

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.

Answer 6

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