Android Paint.setTypeface isn't working for italic

Question

The Paint.setTypeface is not working for italic or I'm doing something the wrong way. I can create normal, bold, monospace, and serif text, but I can't create italic text. It always looks normal (or in the case of bold-italic, it looks bold).

    //This will appear monospace
    paint.setTypeface(Typeface.MONOSPACE);
    canvas.drawText("foo", 10, 10, paint);

    //This will appear serif
    paint.setTypeface(Typeface.SERIF);
    canvas.drawText("foo", 10, 10, paint);

    //This will appear bold
    paint.setTypeface(Typeface.defaultFromStyle(Typeface.BOLD));
    canvas.drawText("foo", 10, 10, paint);

    //This will NOT appear italic <===  PROBLEM
    paint.setTypeface(Typeface.defaultFromStyle(Typeface.ITALIC));
    canvas.drawText("foo", 10, 10, paint);

    // This isn't working either <===  PROBLEM
    paint.setTypeface(Typeface.create(Typeface.SANS_SERIF, Typeface.ITALIC));

So now the question: is there a known workaround for this? My simple goal is to draw some words with italic style...

Luca

Answer 1

After experiencing the same difficulty, I found the solution by fishing around in theTextViewsource code. Try this:

paint.setTextSkewX(-0.25f);

Elum

Before using setTextSkewX method, set the TypeFace to normal, otherwise a text will be skewed much more than needed on devices which support ITALIC mode for a default font. So, use like this: paint.setTypeface(Typeface.create(Typeface.DEFAULT, Typeface.NORMAL); paint.setTextSkewX(-0.25f); – Misery

Answer 2

I have the same problem. looks like not all android typefaces supports ITALIC style. Try following, i'ts worked for me:

paint.setTypeface(Typeface.create(Typeface.SERIF,Typeface.ITALIC));

Works fine just with SERIF. DEFAULT, MONOSPACE, SANS_SERIF ingnores this style.

P.S. I'm talking about API 10.

Bryophyte

Yes if your target is API 10 and above because Google fixed the problem. So this solutions is fine too. Howerver some of my apps still have to be API 4 compatible... – Luca

Answer 3

In order to get an italic mode for devices which don't support it for a default font, we should use setTextSkewX method. However, before applying it we have to be sure that an italic mode is not supported. We achieve it by creating a temporal TextView object and measuring its width in both modes (NORMAL and ITALIC). If their widths are same, then it means an ITALIC mode is NOT supported.

Please, take a look at a solution presented in another question: Samsung devices supporting setTypeface(Typeface.Italic)?

Misery