Here is my solution. The main idea is to split the text words and create a TextView for each of them, wrapping each line with a horizontal LinearLayout and lines in a vertical LinearLayout:
private LinearLayout mDescription; // vertical LinearLayout private void setDescriptionText(String twitterText){ String[] splitted; String regexp = "(@[-a-zA-Z0-9_]*)|(#[-a-zA-Z0-9_]*)|(http://[-a-zA-Z0-9/._]*)|(https://[-a-zA-Z0-9/._]*)|( )"; TextSplitter splitter = new TextSplitter(regexp); splitted = splitter.split(twitterText); TextView[] textViews = new TextView[splitted.length]; for (int i = 0; i < splitted.length; i++) { final String str = splitted[i]; TextView textView = new TextView(mDescription.getContext()); textView.setTextSize(TypedValue.COMPLEX_UNIT_DIP, 16); textViews[i] = textView; textView.setText(str); textView.setTypeface(roboReg); textView.setTextColor(Color.WHITE); if (str.startsWith("@")){ textView.setTextColor(mLinkColor); textView.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() { @Override public void onClick(View v) { startWebViewActivity("https://twitter.com/"+str.substring(1)); } }); }else if (str.startsWith("#")){ textView.setTextColor(mLinkColor); textView.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() { @Override public void onClick(View v) { startWebViewActivity("https://twitter.com/#!/search/?q="+str.substring(1) + "&src=hash"); } }); }else if (str.startsWith("http://") || str.startsWith("https://")){ textView.setTextColor(mLinkColor); textView.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() { @Override public void onClick(View v) { startWebViewActivity(str); } }); } } int maxWidth = (int) TypedValue.applyDimension(TypedValue.COMPLEX_UNIT_DIP, 210, getResources().getDisplayMetrics()); populateText(mDescription, maxWidth , textViews, mDescription.getContext()); } private void populateText(LinearLayout ll,int maxWidth, View[] views, Context mContext) { ll.removeAllViews(); LinearLayout.LayoutParams params; LinearLayout newLL = new LinearLayout(mContext); newLL.setLayoutParams(new LayoutParams(LayoutParams.FILL_PARENT, LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT)); newLL.setGravity(Gravity.LEFT); newLL.setOrientation(LinearLayout.HORIZONTAL); int widthSoFar = 0; for (int i = 0; i < views.length; i++) { LinearLayout LL = new LinearLayout(mContext); LL.setOrientation(LinearLayout.HORIZONTAL); LL.setGravity(Gravity.CENTER_HORIZONTAL | Gravity.BOTTOM); LL.setLayoutParams(new ListView.LayoutParams( LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT, LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT)); views[i].measure(0, 0); params = new LinearLayout.LayoutParams(views[i].getMeasuredWidth(), LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT); LL.addView(views[i], params); LL.measure(0, 0); widthSoFar += views[i].getMeasuredWidth();// YOU MAY NEED TO ADD THE MARGINS if (widthSoFar >= maxWidth) { ll.addView(newLL); newLL = new LinearLayout(mContext); newLL.setLayoutParams(new LayoutParams( LayoutParams.FILL_PARENT, LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT)); newLL.setOrientation(LinearLayout.HORIZONTAL); newLL.setGravity(Gravity.LEFT); params = new LinearLayout.LayoutParams(LL .getMeasuredWidth(), LL.getMeasuredHeight()); newLL.addView(LL, params); widthSoFar = LL.getMeasuredWidth(); } else { newLL.addView(LL); } } ll.addView(newLL); } private class TextSplitter { private Pattern pattern; private boolean keep_delimiters; public TextSplitter(Pattern pattern, boolean keep_delimiters) { this.pattern = pattern; this.keep_delimiters = keep_delimiters; } public TextSplitter(String pattern, boolean keep_delimiters) { this(Pattern.compile(pattern == null ? "" : pattern), keep_delimiters); } public TextSplitter(String pattern) { this(pattern, true); } public String[] split(String text) { if (text == null) { text = ""; } int last_match = 0; LinkedList<String> splitted = new LinkedList<String>(); Matcher m = this.pattern.matcher(text); while (m.find()) { splitted.add(text.substring(last_match, m.start())); if (this.keep_delimiters) { splitted.add(m.group()); } last_match = m.end(); } splitted.add(text.substring(last_match)); return splitted.toArray(new String[splitted.size()]); } }