Android - Way to Appear Bordered Text on the Textview

Android textview outline text

You can put a shadow behind the text, which can often help readability. Try experimenting with 50% translucent black shadows on your green text. Details on how to do this are over here: Android - shadow on text?

To really add a stroke around the text, you need to do something a bit more involved, like this:
How do you draw text with a border on a MapView in Android?

How to outline a TextView?

1) create your textview object extends TextView

public class YourTextView extends TextView { .........

2) Do this on its draw method

@Override
public void draw(Canvas canvas) {
        for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
        super.draw(canvas);
    }
}

3) set textview's xml side as below

android:shadowColor="@color/white"
android:shadowRadius="5"

How to make border for text in TextView?

public class CoustomTextView extends TextView {

    private float strokeWidth;
    private Integer strokeColor;
    private Paint.Join strokeJoin;
    private float strokeMiter;

    public CoustomTextView(Context context) {
        super(context);
        init(null);
    }

    public CoustomTextView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {
        super(context, attrs);
        init(attrs);
    }

    public CoustomTextView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs, int defStyle) {
        super(context, attrs, defStyle);
        init(attrs);
    }

    public void init(AttributeSet attrs) {

        if (attrs != null) {
            TypedArray a = getContext().obtainStyledAttributes(attrs, R.styleable.CoustomTextView);

            if (a.hasValue(R.styleable.CoustomTextView_strokeColor)) {
                float strokeWidth = a.getDimensionPixelSize(R.styleable.CoustomTextView_strokeWidth, 1);
                int strokeColor = a.getColor(R.styleable.CoustomTextView_strokeColor, 0xff000000);
                float strokeMiter = a.getDimensionPixelSize(R.styleable.CoustomTextView_strokeMiter, 10);
                Paint.Join strokeJoin = null;
                switch (a.getInt(R.styleable.CoustomTextView_strokeJoinStyle, 0)) {
                    case (0):
                        strokeJoin = Paint.Join.MITER;
                        break;
                    case (1):
                        strokeJoin = Paint.Join.BEVEL;
                        break;
                    case (2):
                        strokeJoin = Paint.Join.ROUND;
                        break;
                }
                this.setStroke(strokeWidth, strokeColor, strokeJoin, strokeMiter);
            }
        }
    }

    public void setStroke(float width, int color, Paint.Join join, float miter) {
        strokeWidth = width;
        strokeColor = color;
        strokeJoin = join;
        strokeMiter = miter;
    }

    @Override
    public void onDraw(Canvas canvas) {
        super.onDraw(canvas);

        int restoreColor = this.getCurrentTextColor();
        if (strokeColor != null) {
            TextPaint paint = this.getPaint();
            paint.setStyle(Paint.Style.STROKE);
            paint.setStrokeJoin(strokeJoin);
            paint.setStrokeMiter(strokeMiter);
            this.setTextColor(strokeColor);
            paint.setStrokeWidth(strokeWidth);
            super.onDraw(canvas);
            paint.setStyle(Paint.Style.FILL);
            this.setTextColor(restoreColor);
        }
    }
}

Usage:

public class MainActivity extends Activity {

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

        CoustomTextView coustomTextView = (CoustomTextView) findViewById(R.id.pager_title);
    }
}

Layout:

<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    android:background="@mipmap/background">

    <pk.sohail.gallerytest.activity.CoustomTextView
        android:id="@+id/pager_title"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
        android:layout_centerVertical="true"
        android:gravity="center"
        android:text="@string/txt_title_photo_gallery"
        android:textColor="@color/white"
        android:textSize="30dp"
        android:textStyle="bold"
        app:outerShadowRadius="10dp"
        app:strokeColor="@color/title_text_color"
        app:strokeJoinStyle="miter"
        app:strokeWidth="2dp" />

</RelativeLayout>

attars:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>

    <declare-styleable name="CoustomTextView">

        <attr name="outerShadowRadius" format="dimension" />
        <attr name="strokeWidth" format="dimension" />
        <attr name="strokeMiter" format="dimension" />
        <attr name="strokeColor" format="color" />
        <attr name="strokeJoinStyle">
            <enum name="miter" value="0" />
            <enum name="bevel" value="1" />
            <enum name="round" value="2" />
        </attr>
    </declare-styleable>

</resources>

Programmatically:

CoustomTextView mtxt_name = (CoustomTextView) findViewById(R.id.pager_title);

Use setStroke(); method before calling setText();

Android textview - possible to border each letter (like a table border)

The code provided will lead to a view as shown in the picture. If it is what you want you can follow along or you can customize it to what you want!

First you need to make a bordering xml drawable. This will be used as a background to each part of your text. And around each letter or number in your text.
Make a resource file inside drawable folder lets call it border.xml (full name res/drawable/border.xml).Copy and paste this inside it:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
    <shape xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" 
      android:shape="rectangle" >
        <solid android:color="#00ffffff" />
        <stroke android:width="1dip" android:color="#4fa5d5"/>
        <padding android:left="4dp" android:right="4dp" 
                android:bottom="1dp" android:top="1dp"/>                   
    </shape>

This will bring a bordering effect on your text, You can also edit color and padding to fit your needs.
The we need to create a layout with TextView as the root view. So in your layout folder make a file lets call it border_text_view.xml(full name res/layout/border_text_view.xml). Copy and Paste the code below in it:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
    <TextView xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:background="@drawable/border"/>

Note: The background is set to the previous declared border.xml from the drawable folder.

Then in your layout where you plan to display the bordering text lets say its activity_main (it can be any layout you want to display the view).

Add this to that layout:

    .......
    <LinearLayout
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:orientation="horizontal"
        android:id="@+id/layout_border"/>
    .......

Then in your layout's Java Class(Activity or Fragment) get a reference to the Linear layout added above and call the method as follows:

    LinearLayout linearLayout=(LinearLayout)findViewById(R.id.layout_border);  
    addBorderedView(this, linearLayout, "8000LP"); 

Now make the method addBorderedView as follows:

    private void addBorderedView(Context context, LinearLayout layout, String string_to_display) {
    String[] array = string_to_display.split("");
    for (int i = 1; i < array.length; i++) {
        TextView borderedTextView = (TextView) LayoutInflater.from(context).inflate(R.layout.border_text_view, null);
        borderedTextView.setLayoutParams(new LinearLayout.LayoutParams(ViewGroup.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT, ViewGroup.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT));
        borderedTextView.setGravity(Gravity.CENTER);
        borderedTextView.setText(array[i]);
        LinearLayout.LayoutParams params = (LinearLayout.LayoutParams) borderedTextView.getLayoutParams();
        params.setMargins(2, 0, 2, 0); //substitute parameters for left, top, right, bottom
        borderedTextView.setLayoutParams(params);
        layout.addView(borderedTextView);
    }
}

To improve performance you may need to make a view holder if you plan to display large sentences this way, if you are not then you are good to go!

Android: how to configure the textView outline black border in xml layout properly

For outline to characters you can use below code

<FrameLayout
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content">
    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/test1"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_gravity="top"
        android:text="TEST"
        android:textColor="#000000"
        android:textSize="25sp" />
    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/test2"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_gravity="top"
        android:text="TEST"
        android:textColor="#FFC107"
        android:textSize="25sp" />
</FrameLayout>

In .java file put these lines to give border to TextView characters

TextView textViewShadow = (TextView) view.findViewById(R.id.test1);
textViewShadow.getPaint().setStrokeWidth(5);
textViewShadow.getPaint().setStyle(Paint.Style.STROKE);

How to put a border around an Android TextView?

You can set a shape drawable (a rectangle) as background for the view.

<TextView android:text="Some text" android:background="@drawable/back"/>

And rectangle drawable back.xml (put into res/drawable folder):

<shape xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:shape="rectangle" >
   <solid android:color="@android:color/white" />
   <stroke android:width="1dip" android:color="#4fa5d5"/>
</shape>

You can use @android:color/transparent for the solid color to have a transparent background.
You can also use padding to separate the text from the border.
for more information see: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/resources/drawable-resource.html

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