Set UILabel line spacing

Question

How can I modify the gap between lines (line spacing) in a multiline UILabel?

Answer 1

My solution was to patch the font file itself and fix its line height definitely. http://mbauman.net/geek/2009/03/15/minor-truetype-font-editing-on-a-mac/

I had to modify 'lineGap', 'ascender', 'descender' in the 'hhea' block (as in the blog example).

Answer 2

Of course, Mike's answer doesn't work if you pass the string programmatically. In this case you need to pass a attributed string and change it's style.

NSMutableAttributedString * attrString = [[NSMutableAttributedString alloc] initWithString:@"Your \nregular \nstring"];
NSMutableParagraphStyle *style = [[NSMutableParagraphStyle alloc] init];
[style setLineSpacing:4];
[attrString addAttribute:NSParagraphStyleAttributeName
                   value:style
                   range:NSMakeRange(0, attrString.length)];
_label.attributedText = attrString;

Answer 3

I've found 3rd Party Libraries Like this one:

https://github.com/Tuszy/MTLabel

To be the easiest solution.

Answer 4

This guy created a class to get line-height (without using CoreText, as MTLabel library) : https://github.com/LemonCake/MSLabel

Answer 5

You can control line spacing in the storyboard:

duplicate question

Answer 6

From Interface Builder:

Programmatically:

SWift 4

Using label extension

extension UILabel {

    func setLineSpacing(lineSpacing: CGFloat = 0.0, lineHeightMultiple: CGFloat = 0.0) {

        guard let labelText = self.text else { return }

        let paragraphStyle = NSMutableParagraphStyle()
        paragraphStyle.lineSpacing = lineSpacing
        paragraphStyle.lineHeightMultiple = lineHeightMultiple

        let attributedString:NSMutableAttributedString
        if let labelattributedText = self.attributedText {
            attributedString = NSMutableAttributedString(attributedString: labelattributedText)
        } else {
            attributedString = NSMutableAttributedString(string: labelText)
        }

        // Line spacing attribute
        attributedString.addAttribute(NSAttributedStringKey.paragraphStyle, value:paragraphStyle, range:NSMakeRange(0, attributedString.length))

        self.attributedText = attributedString
    }
}

Now call extension function

let label = UILabel()
let stringValue = "How to\ncontrol\nthe\nline spacing\nin UILabel"

// Pass value for any one argument - lineSpacing or lineHeightMultiple
label.setLineSpacing(lineSpacing: 2.0) .  // try values 1.0 to 5.0

// or try lineHeightMultiple
//label.setLineSpacing(lineHeightMultiple = 2.0) // try values 0.5 to 2.0

Or using label instance (Just copy & execute this code to see result)

let label = UILabel()
let stringValue = "Set\nUILabel\nline\nspacing"
let attrString = NSMutableAttributedString(string: stringValue)
var style = NSMutableParagraphStyle()
style.lineSpacing = 24 // change line spacing between paragraph like 36 or 48
style.minimumLineHeight = 20 // change line spacing between each line like 30 or 40

// Line spacing attribute
attrString.addAttribute(NSAttributedStringKey.paragraphStyle, value: style, range: NSRange(location: 0, length: stringValue.characters.count))

// Character spacing attribute
attrString.addAttribute(NSAttributedStringKey.kern, value: 2, range: NSMakeRange(0, attrString.length))

label.attributedText = attrString

Swift 3

let label = UILabel()
let stringValue = "Set\nUILabel\nline\nspacing"
let attrString = NSMutableAttributedString(string: stringValue)
var style = NSMutableParagraphStyle()
style.lineSpacing = 24 // change line spacing between paragraph like 36 or 48
style.minimumLineHeight = 20 // change line spacing between each line like 30 or 40
attrString.addAttribute(NSParagraphStyleAttributeName, value: style, range: NSRange(location: 0, length: stringValue.characters.count))
label.attributedText = attrString