Change character spacing on UILabel within Interface Builder

Question

Is there anyway to change the character spacing (track) on UILabel text using Interface Builder? If not, is there a way to do it programmatically on an existing UILabel that

Answer 1

For completely static text, like the header of a view or especially the launchScreen, you can insert letters that take up a tiny amount of width (e.g. the 'l' character) with 0 opacity. Alternatively set its color to the same as background.

I am aware of the fact, that is not the prettiest solution, but it is the only solution that works without writing any code and does the job - until you can do it by specifying the attributes in Xcode.

Edit / Additional idea: To make your spacing even more variable you can change the font size of the filling charachters in between. (Thanks to @mohamede1945 for that idea)

Answer 2

Why all of you are defining NSMUTABLEAttributedString. You don't have to set range explicitly. It makes emojis looks weird sometimes. This is my solution, tested in Swift 4.

Answer 3

You can use the following Swift 4 UILabel extension which considers both existing attributed text and plain text in order to do not override the existing settings:

import UIKit

extension UILabel {
    func addCharacterSpacing(_ kernValue: Double = 1.30) {
        guard let attributedString: NSMutableAttributedString = {
            if let text = self.text, !text.isEmpty {
                return NSMutableAttributedString(string: text)
            } else if let attributedText = self.attributedText {
                return NSMutableAttributedString(attributedString: attributedText)
            }
            return nil
            }() else { return}

        attributedString.addAttribute(
            NSAttributedString.Key.kern,
            value: kernValue,
            range: NSRange(location: 0, length: attributedString.length)
        )
        self.attributedText = attributedString
    }
}

Answer 4

Swift 3.2 & Interface builder

extension UILabel {

    @IBInspectable
    var letterSpace: CGFloat {
        set {
            let attributedString: NSMutableAttributedString!
            if let currentAttrString = attributedText {
                attributedString = NSMutableAttributedString(attributedString: currentAttrString)
            }
            else {
                attributedString = NSMutableAttributedString(string: text ?? "")
                text = nil
            }

            attributedString.addAttribute(NSKernAttributeName,
                                           value: newValue,
                                           range: NSRange(location: 0, length: attributedString.length))

            attributedText = attributedString
        }

        get {
            if let currentLetterSpace = attributedText?.attribute(NSKernAttributeName, at: 0, effectiveRange: .none) as? CGFloat {
                return currentLetterSpace
            }
            else {
                return 0
            }
        }
    }
}

Answer 5

I know it's not an Interface Builder solution, but you can create a UILabel extension and then add spacing to any UILabel you want:

extension UILabel {
  func addCharacterSpacing(kernValue: Double = 1.15) {
    if let labelText = text, labelText.count > 0 {
      let attributedString = NSMutableAttributedString(string: labelText)
      attributedString.addAttribute(NSAttributedStringKey.kern, value: kernValue, range: NSRange(location: 0, length: attributedString.length - 1))
      attributedText = attributedString
    }
  }
}

Consider changing the default kernValue from 1.15 to something that works better with your design.

---

When implementing always add character spacing after setting the text value:

myLabel.text = "We used to be so close"
myLabel.addCharacterSpacing()

If you plan to have different spacing at different places in the app, you can override the default kern value:

myLabelWithSpecialNeeds.addCharacterSpacing(kernValue: 1.3)

---

This solution overrides any other attributes you might have on your UILabel's attributedText.

Answer 6

try this!!

create CustomLabel class

@interface CustomLabel : UILabel
@property (assign, nonatomic) CGFloat myLineSpacing;
@end


@implementation CustomLabel

- (void)setMyLineSpacing:(CGFloat)myLineSpacing {
    _myLineSpacing = myLineSpacing;
    self.text = self.text;
}

- (void)setText:(NSString *)text {
    NSMutableParagraphStyle *paragraphStyle = [[NSMutableParagraphStyle alloc] init];
    paragraphStyle.lineSpacing = _myLineSpacing;
    paragraphStyle.alignment = self.textAlignment;
    NSDictionary *attributes = @{NSParagraphStyleAttributeName: paragraphStyle};
    NSAttributedString *attributedText = [[NSAttributedString alloc] initWithString:text
                                                                         attributes:attributes];
    self.attributedText = attributedText;
}

and set runtime attribute

Note this is actually line spacing (also called leading .. in the very old days (pre-digital) you'd put lead (the metal) between lines to increase the gap between lines. For spacing between letters, that is called kerning .. here's how to do kerning https://stackoverflow.com/a/21141156/294884