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Asked: 2026-06-11T15:46:02+00:00

First i had a button as this: <Button android:id=@+id/prefButton android:layout_width=wrap_content android:layout_height=wrap_content android:layout_gravity=center_horizontal android:text=Edit />

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First i had a button as this:

<Button
    android:id="@+id/prefButton"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal"
    android:text="Edit" />

since i didn’t specify and textSize, it takes the default side from the device font settings. Add even the Button width and Height looks good.

Now the problem is when i want to add a background image(actually a background color but couldn’t get the exact argb value, hence using image), i added:

    android:background="@drawable/backgroundImage"

and the image was some 300×300 px sized. Hence now i get the Button of size 300×300 (obviously).

So, now i have to hardcode the value of Height and Width. and check if it looks good with those values, if it doesn’t, i must also hardcode TextSize again.

Is there a way to keep the Button same as before and just add a background image(might be bigger).

Thank You

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The better way I can think of approaching your problem is to make your image smaller and setting it as a 9patch image, that would make it stretch to fill the text just as the default button image would do. In a 9patch image you can define the stretching parts of your image so it wouldn’t be deformed when it stretches. Here you can see how to draw a ninepatch stretchable parts.

    Here is an explanation of what a ninepatch image is, taken from here:

    Nine-patch
    A NinePatchDrawable graphic is a stretchable bitmap image, which Android will automatically resize to accommodate the contents of the View in which you have placed it as the background. An example use of a NinePatch is the backgrounds used by standard Android buttons — buttons must stretch to accommodate strings of various lengths. A NinePatch drawable is a standard PNG image that includes an extra 1-pixel-wide border. It must be saved with the extension .9.png, and saved into the res/drawable/ directory of your project.

    The border is used to define the stretchable and static areas of the image. You indicate a stretchable section by drawing one (or more) 1-pixel-wide black line(s) in the left and top part of the border (the other border pixels should be fully transparent or white). You can have as many stretchable sections as you want: their relative size stays the same, so the largest sections always remain the largest.

    You can also define an optional drawable section of the image (effectively, the padding lines) by drawing a line on the right and bottom lines. If a View object sets the NinePatch as its background and then specifies the View’s text, it will stretch itself so that all the text fits inside only the area designated by the right and bottom lines (if included). If the padding lines are not included, Android uses the left and top lines to define this drawable area.

    To clarify the difference between the different lines, the left and top lines define which pixels of the image are allowed to be replicated in order to stretch the image. The bottom and right lines define the relative area within the image that the contents of the View are allowed to lie within.

    Here is a sample NinePatch file used to define a button:

    Button NinePatch

    This NinePatch defines one stretchable area with the left and top lines and the drawable area with the bottom and right lines. In the top image, the dotted grey lines identify the regions of the image that will be replicated in order to stretch the image. The pink rectangle in the bottom image identifies the region in which the contents of the View are allowed. If the contents don’t fit in this region, then the image will be stretched so that they do.

    The Draw 9-patch tool offers an extremely handy way to create your NinePatch images, using a WYSIWYG graphics editor. It even raises warnings if the region you’ve defined for the stretchable area is at risk of producing drawing artifacts as a result of the pixel replication.

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