How to change letter spacing in a Textview?

Question

Since API 21 there is an option set letter spacing. You can call method setLetterSpacing or set it in XML with attribute letterSpacing.

More space:

  android:letterSpacing="0.1"

Less space:

 android:letterSpacing="-0.07"

check out android:textScaleX

Depending on how much spacing you need, this might help. That's the only thing remotely related to letter-spacing in the TextView.

Edit: please see @JerabekJakub's response below for an updated, better method to do this starting with api 21 (Lollipop)

This answer is based on Pedro's answer but adjusted so it also works if text attribute is already set:

package nl.raakict.android.spc.widget;
import android.content.Context;
import android.text.Spannable;
import android.text.SpannableString;
import android.text.style.ScaleXSpan;
import android.util.AttributeSet;
import android.widget.TextView;


public class LetterSpacingTextView extends TextView {
    private float letterSpacing = LetterSpacing.BIGGEST;
    private CharSequence originalText = "";


    public LetterSpacingTextView(Context context) {
        super(context);
    }

    public LetterSpacingTextView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs){
        super(context, attrs);
        originalText = super.getText();
        applyLetterSpacing();
        this.invalidate();
    }

    public LetterSpacingTextView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs, int defStyle){
        super(context, attrs, defStyle);
    }

    public float getLetterSpacing() {
        return letterSpacing;
    }

    public void setLetterSpacing(float letterSpacing) {
        this.letterSpacing = letterSpacing;
        applyLetterSpacing();
    }

    @Override
    public void setText(CharSequence text, BufferType type) {
        originalText = text;
        applyLetterSpacing();
    }

    @Override
    public CharSequence getText() {
        return originalText;
    }

    private void applyLetterSpacing() {
        if (this == null || this.originalText == null) return;
        StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
        for(int i = 0; i < originalText.length(); i++) {
            String c = ""+ originalText.charAt(i);
            builder.append(c.toLowerCase());
            if(i+1 < originalText.length()) {
                builder.append("\u00A0");
            }
        }
        SpannableString finalText = new SpannableString(builder.toString());
        if(builder.toString().length() > 1) {
            for(int i = 1; i < builder.toString().length(); i+=2) {
                finalText.setSpan(new ScaleXSpan((letterSpacing+1)/10), i, i+1, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
            }
        }
        super.setText(finalText, BufferType.SPANNABLE);
    }

    public class LetterSpacing {
        public final static float NORMAL = 0;
        public final static float NORMALBIG = (float)0.025;
        public final static float BIG = (float)0.05;
        public final static float BIGGEST = (float)0.2;
    }
}

If you want to use it programatically:

LetterSpacingTextView textView = new LetterSpacingTextView(context);
textView.setSpacing(10); //Or any float. To reset to normal, use 0 or LetterSpacingTextView.Spacing.NORMAL
textView.setText("My text");
//Add the textView in a layout, for instance:
((LinearLayout) findViewById(R.id.myLinearLayout)).addView(textView);

after API >=21 there is inbuild method provided by TextView called setLetterSpacing

check this for more

I built a custom class that extends TextView and solves this problem... Check out my answer here =)