How to change title and Subtitle text color and size of ActionBar in Android?

By | October 9, 2014

Here is a simple example that shows how you can change title and subtitle textcolor and its size in Android

Method 1

Changing the styles [For support Library]

Go to Values/styles.xml copy this code to change the textcolor and actionbar background color.

<style name="CustomActivityTheme" parent="@style/Theme.AppCompat.Light">
	 <item name="android:actionBarStyle">@style/MyActionBar</item>
	 <item name="actionBarStyle">@style/MyActionBar</item>
	 <item name="android:windowActionBarOverlay">true</item>
	 <!-- other activity and action bar styles here -->
 </style>
 
 <!-- style for the action bar backgrounds -->
 <style name="MyActionBar" parent="@style/Widget.AppCompat.Light.ActionBar">
	 <item name="android:background">@drawable/actionbar_background</item>
	 <item name="background">@drawable/actionbar_background</item>
	 <item name="android:titleTextStyle">@style/MyTheme.ActionBar.TitleTextStyle</item>
	 <item name="android:subtitleTextStyle">@style/MyTheme.ActionBar.TitleTextStyle</item>
	 <item name="titleTextStyle">@style/MyTheme.ActionBar.TitleTextStyle</item>
	 <item name="subtitleTextStyle">@style/MyTheme.ActionBar.TitleTextStyle</item>
 </style>
 
 <!-- Text -->
 <style name="MyTheme.ActionBar.TitleTextStyle" parent="@android:style/TextAppearance">
	 <item name="android:textColor">@color/color_title</item>
	 <item name="android:textSize">12sp</item>
 </style> 

Note : For applying theme if you are not using the Support Library then change the AppCompat to Holo.

i.e make the Below changes in the parent

  parent="@android:style/Theme.Holo.Light"

for ActionBar

  parent="@android:style/Widget.Holo.Light.ActionBar"

for title

  parent="@android:style/TextAppearance.Holo.Widget.ActionBar.Title"

Now Apply this theme in the AndroidManifest.xml, either for the entire application or a particular activity.

For example


 <application android:allowBackup="true" android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher" android:label="@string/app_name" android:theme="@style/CustomActivityTheme" >
        <activity android:name="com.example.actionbarcustomize.MainActivity" android:label="@string/app_name" >
            <intent-filter>
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

                <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
            </intent-filter>
        </activity>
 </application>
	

Make Sure you add the colors in the strings.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>

    <string name="app_name">ActionBarCustomize</string>
    <string name="hello_world">Hello world!</string>
    <string name="menu_settings">Settings</string>

    <drawable name="actionbar_background">#FF0000</drawable>
    <color name="color_title">#00FF00</color>
	
</resources>

You can use a simple java code to so this.

getActionBar().setTitle(Html.fromHtml("<font color='#ff0000'>ActionBartitle </font>"));

Note : Change getActionBar() to getSupportActionBar() if you are using the support library for ActionBar.

That’s all.. Now Run the application and see the changes.

 

4 thoughts on “How to change title and Subtitle text color and size of ActionBar in Android?

  1. Aleksandr Strizhevskiy

    Dude!!! It is 6AM and I have been up a all night trying to get my code to work. Ive been searching for like 2 hours alone just for the title text. All the official examples are from before AppCompacActivity. Or maybe Im just dumb.

    Either way your code worked and I am super grateful!

    Reply
  2. Apurv

    Thank you for help , after 8 hours it have done using your code thank you

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *