Android, How to limit width of TextView (and add three dots at the end of text)?

The following is what I learned by playing around with various options for forcing a TextView to a single line (with and without the three dots).

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android:maxLines="1"

<TextView
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:maxLines="1"
    android:text="one two three four five six seven eight nine ten" />

This just forces the text to one line. Any extra text is hidden.

Related:

  • android:maxLines
  • android:singleLine (Note this and this)
  • android:lines

ellipsize="end"

<TextView
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:maxLines="1"
    android:ellipsize="end"
    android:text="one two three four five six seven eight nine ten" />

This cuts off the text that doesn't fit but lets users know that the text has been truncated by adding an ellipsis (the three dots).

Related:

  • ellipsize="start" (...aaabbbccc)
  • ellipsize="middle" (aaa...ccc)
  • android: Ellipsise , meaning of the options

ellipsize="marquee"

<TextView
    android:id="@+id/MarqueeText"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:maxLines="1"
    android:singleLine="true"
    android:ellipsize="marquee"
    android:focusable="true"
    android:focusableInTouchMode="true"
    android:text="one two three four five six seven eight nine ten" />

This makes the text scroll automatically across the TextView. Note that sometimes it needs to be set in code:

textView.setSelected(true);

Supposedly android:maxLines="1" and android:singleLine="true" should do basically the same thing and since singleLine is apparently deprecated I would prefer not to use it, but when I take it out, the marquee doesn't scroll anymore. Taking maxLines out doesn't affect it, though.

Related:

  • Marquee text in Android

HorizontalScrollView with scrollHorizontally

<HorizontalScrollView
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:id="@+id/horizontalScrollView">

    <TextView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:maxLines="1"
        android:scrollHorizontally="true"
        android:text="one two three four five six seven eight nine ten" />
</HorizontalScrollView>

This allows the user to manually scroll to see the whole line of text.


I take it you want to limit width to one line and not limit it by character? Since singleLine is deprecated, you could try using the following together:

android:maxLines="1"
android:scrollHorizontally="true"
android:ellipsize="end"

Try this property of TextView in your layout file..

android:ellipsize="end"
android:maxLines="1"

Deprecated:

Add one more property android:singleLine="true" in your Textview

Updated:

android:ellipsize="end" 
android:maxLines="1"