Remove top and bottom spacing in TextView

Question

How do I remove the spacing on the top and bottom of the texts? I want to the two texts to touch each other or at least reduce the spacing between the texts.

I've looked at other posts recommending setting android:includeFontPadding="false" , but that does not work.

<TextView
    android:id="@+id/textView"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:textSize="96sp"
    android:text="TEXT1"
    android:background="@color/primaryColor"
    app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf="parent"
    app:layout_constraintEnd_toEndOf="parent"
    app:layout_constraintStart_toStartOf="parent"
    app:layout_constraintTop_toTopOf="parent" />

<TextView
    android:id="@+id/textView2"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:textSize="96sp"
    android:text="TEXT2"
    android:background="@color/secondaryColor"
    app:layout_constraintEnd_toEndOf="parent"
    app:layout_constraintStart_toStartOf="parent"
    app:layout_constraintTop_toBottomOf="@id/textView" />

Answer 1

The problem is that's not just empty space - it's the ascent and descent for the font, where things like the lower part of a g goes. The TextView has to have that space because it doesn't know you're not going to be using it. includeFontPadding affects some accents on top of the ascent, so you can remove a little bit of the space, but the rest of it's required.

Short of getting a font with no ascent and descent, honestly I think the best thing you can do is constrain the top of the lower TextView to the top of the upper one, and add a marginTop value that shifts it down where you want it. Use an sp value instead of dp so it stays relative to the user's font size preferences - and if you change the font you'll need to tweak it. And the backgrounds will have to be separate, behind the textviews, if you're using those

Answer 2

If you absolutely want this at any cost, then you can do the following, I have not checked if it will work on different screen sizes. But you can attach both of their top to the same view, can be parent, then make the background transparent, if you chose different colours then this wont work, keep the text in all caps so that the regular alphabets can't go any higher or lower. Keep the margin according to the text size which you will give in dp. This is probably "I want this in any way" approach rather than an acceptable approach.

<androidx.constraintlayout.widget.ConstraintLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto">

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/textView"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:textSize="95dp"
        android:text="TEXT1"
        
        android:background="@android:color/transparent"
       
        app:layout_constraintEnd_toEndOf="parent"
        app:layout_constraintStart_toStartOf="parent"
        android:layout_marginTop="0dp"
        app:layout_constraintTop_toTopOf="parent" />

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/textView2"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:background="@android:color/transparent"
        android:text="TEXT2"
        android:textSize="95dp"
        android:layout_marginTop="75dp"
        app:layout_constraintEnd_toEndOf="parent"
        app:layout_constraintStart_toStartOf="parent"
        app:layout_constraintTop_toTopOf="parent" />

</androidx.constraintlayout.widget.ConstraintLayout>

Answer 3

You can do some clever stuff with a Space view to make this work:

<TextView android:id="@+id/textView1"
    [other TextView stuff]
    app:layout_constraintTop_toTopOf="parent"/>
<Space android:id="@+id/space"
    android:layout_marginBottom="20dp"
    app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf="@id/textView1"/>
<TextView android:id="@+id/textView2"
    [other TextView stuff]
    app:layout_constraintTop_toBottomOf="@id/space"/>

Then fiddle with the margin parameter in the Space view until the text is where you want it.