Android How to get selected word in Edittext?

Question

I am developing an app like Notepad in which I want to change the selected text formatting dynamically (colors, changing font styles, bold, italic, underline etc.) How can I format a specific word?

Answer 1

You can get the selected word using getSelectionStart() and getSelectionEnd() method :

EditText etx=(EditText)findViewById(R.id.editext);

int startSelection=etx.getSelectionStart();
int endSelection=etx.getSelectionEnd();

String selectedText = etx.getText().substring(startSelection, endSelection);

---

Then you can apply your specific formatting by using this selected substring in the full string after taking it to a SpannableStringBuilder on a button click/some other event:

Code for formatting text:

  int startSelection=etx.getSelectionStart();
  int endSelection=etx.getSelectionEnd();

                  final SpannableStringBuilder sb = new SpannableStringBuilder(etx.getText().toString());

                        final StyleSpan bss = new StyleSpan(android.graphics.Typeface.BOLD); // Span to make text bold
                        final StyleSpan iss = new StyleSpan(android.graphics.Typeface.ITALIC); // Span to make text italic                                     
                        sb.setSpan(iss, startSelection, endSelection, Spannable.SPAN_INCLUSIVE_INCLUSIVE);
                        sb.setSpan(bss, startSelection, endSelection, Spannable.SPAN_INCLUSIVE_INCLUSIVE);
                        etx.setText(sb);    

---

Reference.