How to change Text Color of TextView in Android?

Android TextView – Text Color

TextView Text Color – To change the color of text in TextView, you can set the color in layout XML file using textColor attribute or change the color dynamically in Kotlin file using setTextColor() method.

In this tutorial, we will learn both the layout file approach and Kotlin line approach to change the text color of TextView.

Change Text Color of TextView via XML Layout File

textColor attribute of TextView widget lets you set a color of your choice. You can provide the color as hex value in one of the four formats: rgb, argb, rrggbb, or aarrggbb.

The syntax to set textColor attribute for TextView using different color formats is

<TextView
    ...
    android:textColor="#92B" />

<TextView
    ...
    android:textColor="#A92B" />

<TextView
    ...
    android:textColor="#9C27B0" />

<TextView
    ...
    android:textColor="#CC9C27B0" />

Example 1 – TextView Color

Let us create an Android application with Kotlin support in Android Studio and change the text color of TextView in XML layout file.

activity_main.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:id="@+id/linear_layout_id"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent">
    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/text_view_id"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:gravity="center"
        android:textSize="40dp"
        android:padding="50dp"
        android:textColor="#9C27B0"
        android:text="@string/hello" />
</LinearLayout>

We have used a string resource, and the contents of strings.xml is

<resources>
    <string name="app_name">TextView Tutorial - TutorialKart</string>
    <string name="hello">Hello World!</string>
</resources>

There is no need to change the MainActivity.kt file. The default code would do.

MainActivity.kt

package com.tutorialkart.textviewtutorial

import androidx.appcompat.app.AppCompatActivity
import android.os.Bundle

class MainActivity : AppCompatActivity() {
    override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main)
    }
}

Run this application, and you would get the following screenshot.

Change Text Color of TextView in Kotlin File

We can get the reference to TextView widget present in layout file and change the color dynamically with Kotlin code.

To set the color to the TextView widget, call setTextColor() method on the TextView widget reference with specific color passed as argument.

setTextColor() method takes int as argument. Use android.graphics.Color class to get an integer for a given color. You can provide the color as hex value in one of the four formats: rgb, argb, rrggbb, or aarrggbb.

The syntax to set text color using setTextColor() method of TextView in Kotlin Activity file is

var textView = findViewById<TextView>(R.id.text_view_id)
textView.setTextColor(Color.parseColor("#FF0000"))

Example 2 – TextView Color

Let us create an Android application with Kotlin support in Android Studio and change the text color of TextView dynamically/programmatically in Kotlin file.

The layout file contains a TextView. Since we are about to change the text color in Kotlin file, no text color is specified in layout XML file.

activity_main.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:id="@+id/linear_layout_id"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent">
    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/text_view_id"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:gravity="center"
        android:textSize="40dp"
        android:padding="50dp"
        android:text="@string/hello" />
</LinearLayout>

We have used a string resource, and the contents of strings.xml is

<resources>
    <string name="app_name">TextView Tutorial - TutorialKart</string>
    <string name="hello">Hello World!</string>
</resources>

We have got the reference to the TextView in layout file using findViewById() method. Call to setTextColor() method on the TextView reference would set the text color of TextView.

MainActivity.kt

package com.tutorialkart.textviewtutorial

import android.graphics.Color
import androidx.appcompat.app.AppCompatActivity
import android.os.Bundle
import android.widget.TextView

class MainActivity : AppCompatActivity() {
    override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main)

        var textView = findViewById<TextView>(R.id.text_view_id)
        textView.setTextColor(Color.parseColor("#FF0000"))
    }
}

Run this application, and you would get the following screenshot.

Conclusion

In this Kotlin Android Tutorial, we learned how to set or change the text/font color of TextView widget in Android application.