Set color of TextView span in Android

Here's a Kotlin Extension Function I have for this

    fun TextView.setColouredSpan(word: String, color: Int) {
        val spannableString = SpannableString(text)
        val start = text.indexOf(word)
        val end = text.indexOf(word) + word.length
        try {
            spannableString.setSpan(ForegroundColorSpan(color), start, end,Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE)
            text = spannableString
        } catch (e: IndexOutOfBoundsException) {
         println("'$word' was not not found in TextView text")
    }
}

Use it after you have set your text to the TextView like so

private val blueberry by lazy { getColor(R.color.blueberry) }

textViewTip.setColouredSpan("Warning", blueberry)

Just to add to the accepted answer, as all the answers seem to talk about android.graphics.Color only: what if the color I want is defined in res/values/colors.xml?

For example, consider Material Design colors defined in colors.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <color name="md_blue_500">#2196F3</color>
</resources>

(android_material_design_colours.xml is your best friend)

Then use ContextCompat.getColor(getContext(), R.color.md_blue_500) where you would use Color.BLUE, so that:

wordtoSpan.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(Color.BLUE), 15, 30, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);

becomes:

wordtoSpan.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(ContextCompat.getColor(getContext(), R.color.md_blue_500)), 15, 30, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);

Where I found that:

• Working with spans in Android – Michael Spitsin – Medium

Using kotlin-ktx, you can achieve it easily

        bindView?.oneTimePasswordTitle?.text = buildSpannedString {
        append("One Time Password ")
        inSpans(
            ForegroundColorSpan(ContextCompat.getColor(bindView?.oneTimePasswordTitle?.context!!,R.color.colorPrimaryText))
        ){
            append(" (As Registered Email)")
        }

    }

Some answers here aren't up to date. Because, you will (in most of cases) add a custom clic action on your link.

Besides, as provided by the documentation help, your spanned string link color will have a default one. "The default link color is the theme's accent color or android:textColorLink if this attribute is defined in the theme".

Here is the way to do it safely.

 private class CustomClickableSpan extends ClickableSpan {

    private int color = -1;

    public CustomClickableSpan(){
        super();
        if(getContext() != null) {
            color = ContextCompat.getColor(getContext(), R.color.colorPrimaryDark);
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void updateDrawState(@NonNull TextPaint ds) {
        ds.setColor(color != -1 ? color : ds.linkColor);
        ds.setUnderlineText(true);
    }

    @Override
    public void onClick(@NonNull View widget) {
    }
}

Then to use it.

   String text = "my text with action";
    hideText= new SpannableString(text);
    hideText.setSpan(new CustomClickableSpan(){

        @Override
        public void onClick(@NonNull View widget) {
            // your action here !
        }

    }, 0, text.length(), Spanned.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
    yourtextview.setText(hideText);
    // don't forget this ! or this will not work !
    yourtextview.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());

Hope this will strongly help !

Below works perfectly for me

    tvPrivacyPolicy = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.tvPrivacyPolicy);
    String originalText = (String)tvPrivacyPolicy.getText();
    int startPosition = 15;
    int endPosition = 31;

    SpannableString spannableStr = new SpannableString(originalText);
    UnderlineSpan underlineSpan = new UnderlineSpan();
    spannableStr.setSpan(underlineSpan, startPosition, endPosition, Spanned.SPAN_INCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);

    ForegroundColorSpan backgroundColorSpan = new ForegroundColorSpan(Color.BLUE);
    spannableStr.setSpan(backgroundColorSpan, startPosition, endPosition, Spanned.SPAN_INCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);

    StyleSpan styleSpanItalic  = new StyleSpan(Typeface.BOLD);

    spannableStr.setSpan(styleSpanItalic, startPosition, endPosition, Spanned.SPAN_INCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);

    tvPrivacyPolicy.setText(spannableStr);

Output for above code

From the developer docs, to change the color and size of a spannable:

1- create a class:

    class RelativeSizeColorSpan(size: Float,@ColorInt private val color: Int): RelativeSizeSpan(size) {

    override fun updateDrawState(textPaint: TextPaint?) {
        super.updateDrawState(textPaint)
        textPaint?.color = color
    } 
}

2 Create your spannable using that class:

    val spannable = SpannableStringBuilder(titleNames)
spannable.setSpan(
    RelativeSizeColorSpan(1.5f, Color.CYAN), // Increase size by 50%
    titleNames.length - microbe.name.length, // start
    titleNames.length, // end
    Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_INCLUSIVE
)

You can use extension function in Kotlin

fun CharSequence.colorizeText(
    textPartToColorize: CharSequence,
    @ColorInt color: Int
): CharSequence = SpannableString(this).apply {
    val startIndexOfText = this.indexOf(textPartToColorize.toString())
    setSpan(ForegroundColorSpan(color), startIndexOfText, startIndexOfText.plus(textPartToColorize.length), 0)
}

Usage:

val colorizedText = "this text will be colorized"
val myTextToColorize = "some text, $colorizedText continue normal text".colorizeText(colorizedText,ContextCompat.getColor(context, R.color.someColor))
viewBinding.myTextView.text = myTextToColorize

Now you can use the CodeView library to highlight patterns with different colors easily, for example, to highlight all URLs inside the text with the blue color you just need to write

CodeView codeView = findViewById(R.id.codeview);
codeView.addSyntaxPattern(Patterns.WEB_URL, Color.BLUE);
codeView.setTextHighlighted(text);

CodeView Repository URL: https://github.com/amrdeveloper/codeview

• I got the same issue.
• @Dano's answer is absolutely correct. But it doesn't work for me.
• After that, I found the issue I have added ClickableSpan. So it will change my color with another color (accent color)

Issue

SpannableStringBuilder will not change color and undline when you add a ClickableSpan after ForegroundColorSpan or UnderlineSpan.

Solution

1. With ClickableSpan

• You can Override the updateDrawState method inside ClickableSpan.
• In the updateDrawState method, you should remove the super callback.
• After that, you should Modify your text paint as required.

2. Without ClickableSpan

• Add ForegroundColorSpan to change the text color
• Add UnderlineSpan to add underline in text.

First Part **Second Part should be Bold** last Part

This text should be changed using SpannableString

import android.graphics.Typeface.BOLD
import android.text.Spannable
import android.text.Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE
import android.text.SpannableString
import android.text.style.BackgroundColorSpan
import android.text.style.ForegroundColorSpan
import android.text.style.StyleSpan

val firstPart = "First Part  "
val secondPart = "Second Part should be Bold"
val thirdPart = "  last Part"
val finalString = firstPart + secondPart + thirdPart

val sb: Spannable = SpannableString(finalString).also {
                // ... Change text Colour
                it.setSpan(
                    ForegroundColorSpan(getColor(requireContext(), R.color.pink)),
                    finalString.indexOf(secondPart),
                    finalString.indexOf(secondPart) + secondPart.length,
                    SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE
                )
                // ... Make the text Bold
                it.setSpan(
                    StyleSpan(BOLD),
                    finalString.indexOf(secondPart),
                    finalString.indexOf(secondPart) + secondPart.length,
                    SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE
                )
                // ... Change Background Colour
                it.setSpan(
                    BackgroundColorSpan(getColor(requireContext(), R.color.lightPink)),
                    finalString.indexOf(secondPart) - 1,
                    finalString.indexOf(secondPart) + secondPart.length + 1,
                    SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE
                )
}

yourTextView.text = sb