Android – How to draw text on a bitmap

22. 12. 2023

ALERT: This article might be outdated and not fit for your needs. In order to enjoy its updated version, visit Android Guide To: Drawing Text Over Bitmap

This short article shows you how to draw text on bitmap loaded from resources. You can see also multiline version.

First we read bitmap from resources. This bitmap is immutable, so we create mutable copy. Then we create Paint object and set them text size, color, shadow, etc.

Now we are ready to draw! But where? We need to calculate position of the bottom left corner of drawn text. That’s all. Enjoy!

public Bitmap drawTextToBitmap(Context gContext, 
  int gResId, 
  String gText) {
  Resources resources = gContext.getResources();
  float scale = resources.getDisplayMetrics().density;
  Bitmap bitmap = 
      BitmapFactory.decodeResource(resources, gResId);
	
  android.graphics.Bitmap.Config bitmapConfig =
      bitmap.getConfig();
  // set default bitmap config if none
  if(bitmapConfig == null) {
    bitmapConfig = android.graphics.Bitmap.Config.ARGB_8888;
  }
  // resource bitmaps are imutable, 
  // so we need to convert it to mutable one
  bitmap = bitmap.copy(bitmapConfig, true);
	
  Canvas canvas = new Canvas(bitmap);
  // new antialised Paint
  Paint paint = new Paint(Paint.ANTI_ALIAS_FLAG);
  // text color - #3D3D3D
  paint.setColor(Color.rgb(61, 61, 61));
  // text size in pixels
  paint.setTextSize((int) (14 * scale));
  // text shadow
  paint.setShadowLayer(1f, 0f, 1f, Color.WHITE);
	
  // draw text to the Canvas center
  Rect bounds = new Rect();
  paint.getTextBounds(gText, 0, gText.length(), bounds);
  int x = (bitmap.getWidth() - bounds.width())/2;
  int y = (bitmap.getHeight() + bounds.height())/2;
	
  canvas.drawText(gText, x, y, paint);
	
  return bitmap;
}

EDIT 2013-11-16: Fixed bug in canvas.drawText() call. Variables x and y are no longer multiplied by scale.

EDIT 2015-11-14: Added link to multiline version.

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