How to render HTML content in Flutter

If you’re building a magazine/newspaper application (or something like that) with Flutter, you may want to render some HTML content (which usually is fetched from a remote server). This article shows you how to do so by using a plugin called flutter_html.

Sample HTML (this will be used later):

<div>
    <h1>This is a title</h1>
    <p>This is a <strong>paragraph</strong>.</p>
    <p>I like <i>dogs</i></p>
    <p style='color: red, font-size: 20px'>Red text</p>
    <ul>
        <li>List item 1</li>
        <li>List item 2</li>
        <li>List item 3</li>
    </ul>
    <img style='width: 300, height: 200' src='https://www.kindacode.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/my-dog.jpg' />
</div>

Installation

1. You can conveniently add flutter_html and its latest version to the dependencies section in your pubspec.yaml file by performing the following command:

flutter pub add flutter_html

2. Then execute the command below:

flutter pub get

Usage

The package provides a widget named Html. You can simply implement it like so:

import 'package:flutter_html/flutter_html.dart';
import 'package:flutter_html/style.dart'; // For using CSS

/* ... */
Html(
      data: /* HTML source */,
      // Styling with CSS (not real CSS)
      style: {
          /* ... */
      },
)

For more clarity, see the end-to-end example below.

The Complete Example

Screenshot:

The code:

// main.dart
import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
import 'package:flutter_html/flutter_html.dart';
import 'package:flutter_html/style.dart';

void main() {
  runApp(const MyApp());
}

class MyApp extends StatelessWidget {
  const MyApp({Key? key}) : super(key: key);

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return const MaterialApp(
      // Remove the debug banner
      debugShowCheckedModeBanner: false,
      title: 'Kindacode.com',
      home: HomePage(),
    );
  }
}

class HomePage extends StatelessWidget {
  final _htmlContent = """
  <div>
    <h1>This is a title</h1>
    <p>This is a <strong>paragraph</strong>.</p>
    <p>I like <i>dogs</i></p>
    <p>Red text</p>
    <ul>
        <li>List item 1</li>
        <li>List item 2</li>
        <li>List item 3</li>
    </ul>
    <img src='https://www.kindacode.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/my-dog.jpg' />
  </div>
  """;

  const HomePage({Key? key}) : super(key: key);
  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Scaffold(
      appBar: AppBar(
        title: const Text('Kindacode.com'),
      ),
      body: SafeArea(
        child: SingleChildScrollView(
          child: Html(
            data: _htmlContent,
            // Styling with CSS (not real CSS)
            style: {
              'h1': Style(color: Colors.red),
              'p': Style(color: Colors.black87, fontSize: FontSize.medium),
              'ul': Style(margin: const EdgeInsets.symmetric(vertical: 20))
            },
          ),
        ),
      ),
    );
  }
}

See also: How to use web view in Flutter.

Afterword

You’ve learned how to display HTML content in a Flutter app. Keep the ball rolling and continue moving forward on the mobile development journey by taking a look at the following articles:

• Viewing PDF files in Flutter
• How to encode/decode JSON in Flutter
• Flutter PaginatedDataTable Example
• How to implement Star Rating in Flutter
• How to save network images to the device in Flutter

You can also check out our Flutter category page or Dart category page for the latest tutorials and examples.