Underline text in UIlabel

Question

How can I underline a text that could be multiple lines of string? I find some people suggest UIWebView, but it is obviously too heavy a class for just text rendering.

My thoughts was to figure out the start point and length of each string in each line. And draw a line under it accordingly.

I meet problems at how to figure out the length and start point for the string. Can anybody help me on this?

I tried to use -[UILabel textRectForBounds:limitedToNumberOfLines:], this should be the drawing bounding rect for the text right? Then I have to work on the alignment? How can I get the start point of each line when it is center-justified and right justified?

I am new here, so thank you in advance.

Answer 1

This is what i did. It works like butter.

1) Add CoreText.framework to your Frameworks.

2) import <CoreText/CoreText.h> in the class where you need underlined label.

3) Write the following code.

    NSMutableAttributedString *attString = [[NSMutableAttributedString alloc] initWithString:@"My Messages"];
    [attString addAttribute:(NSString*)kCTUnderlineStyleAttributeName
              value:[NSNumber numberWithInt:kCTUnderlineStyleSingle]
              range:(NSRange){0,[attString length]}];
    self.myMsgLBL.attributedText = attString;
    self.myMsgLBL.textColor = [UIColor whiteColor];

Answer 2

Another solution could be (since iOS 7) given a negative value to NSBaselineOffsetAttributeName, for example your NSAttributedString could be:

NSAttributedString *attributedText = [[NSAttributedString alloc] initWithString:@"my text goes here'
                                                            attributes:@{NSFontAttributeName: [UIFont fontWithName:@"Helvetica-Regular" size:12],
                                                                         NSForegroundColorAttributeName: [UIColor blackColor],
                                                                         NSUnderlineStyleAttributeName: @(NSUnderlineStyleSingle), NSBaselineOffsetAttributeName: @(-3)}];

Hope this will help ;-)

Answer 3

I have Created for multiline uilabel with underline :

For Font size 8 to 13 set int lineHeight = self.font.pointSize+3;

For font size 14 to 20 set int lineHeight = self.font.pointSize+4;

- (void)drawRect:(CGRect)rect 

{

CGContextRef ctx = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext();

const CGFloat* colors = CGColorGetComponents(self.textColor.CGColor);

CGContextSetRGBStrokeColor(ctx, colors[0], colors[1], colors[2], 1.0); // RGBA

CGContextSetLineWidth(ctx, 1.0f);
CGSize tmpSize = [self.text sizeWithFont:self.font constrainedToSize:CGSizeMake(self.frame.size.width, 9999)];

int height = tmpSize.height;

int lineHeight = self.font.pointSize+4;    

int maxCount = height/lineHeight;

float totalWidth = [self.text sizeWithFont:self.font constrainedToSize:CGSizeMake(1000, 9999)].width;

for(int i=1;i<=maxCount;i++)

{

    float width=0.0;
    if((i*self.frame.size.width-totalWidth)<=0)
        width = self.frame.size.width;
    else
        width = self.frame.size.width - (i* self.frame.size.width - totalWidth);
    CGContextMoveToPoint(ctx, 0, lineHeight*i-1);
    CGContextAddLineToPoint(ctx, width, lineHeight*i-1);
}

CGContextStrokePath(ctx);

[super drawRect:rect]; 
}

Answer 4

Swift 4.1 ver:

 let underlineAttriString = NSAttributedString(string:"attriString", attributes:
    [NSAttributedStringKey.underlineStyle: NSUnderlineStyle.styleSingle.rawValue])

label.attributedText = underlineAttriString

Answer 5

You may subclass from UILabel and override drawRect method:

- (void)drawRect:(CGRect)rect {
    CGContextRef ctx = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext();
    CGContextSetRGBStrokeColor(ctx, 207.0f/255.0f, 91.0f/255.0f, 44.0f/255.0f, 1.0f); // RGBA
    CGContextSetLineWidth(ctx, 1.0f);

    CGContextMoveToPoint(ctx, 0, self.bounds.size.height - 1);
    CGContextAddLineToPoint(ctx, self.bounds.size.width, self.bounds.size.height - 1);

    CGContextStrokePath(ctx);

    [super drawRect:rect];  
}

---

UPD:
As of iOS 6 Apple added NSAttributedString support for UILabel, so now it's much easier and works for multiple lines:

NSDictionary *underlineAttribute = @{NSUnderlineStyleAttributeName: @(NSUnderlineStyleSingle)};
myLabel.attributedText = [[NSAttributedString alloc] initWithString:@"Test string" 
                                                         attributes:underlineAttribute];

If you still wish to support iOS 4 and iOS 5, I'd recommend to use TTTAttributedLabel rather than underline label manually. However if you need to underline one-line UILabel and don't want to use third-party components, code above would still do the trick.

Answer 6

Based on Kovpas & Damien Praca's Answers, here is an implementation of UILabelUnderligned which also support textAlignemnt.

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>

@interface UILabelUnderlined : UILabel

@end

and the implementation:

#import "UILabelUnderlined.h"

@implementation DKUILabel

- (id)initWithFrame:(CGRect)frame
{
    self = [super initWithFrame:frame];
    if (self) {
        // Initialization code
    }
    return self;
}

- (void)drawRect:(CGRect)rect {

    CGContextRef ctx = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext();
    const CGFloat* colors = CGColorGetComponents(self.textColor.CGColor);

    CGContextSetRGBStrokeColor(ctx, colors[0], colors[1], colors[2], 1.0); // RGBA

    CGContextSetLineWidth(ctx, 1.0f);

    CGSize textSize = [self.text sizeWithFont:self.font constrainedToSize:CGSizeMake(200, 9999)];

    // handle textAlignement

    int alignementXOffset = 0;

    switch (self.textAlignment) {
        case UITextAlignmentLeft:
            break;
        case UITextAlignmentCenter:
            alignementXOffset = (self.frame.size.width - textSize.width)/2;
            break;
        case UITextAlignmentRight:
            alignementXOffset = self.frame.size.width - textSize.width;
            break;
    }

    CGContextMoveToPoint(ctx, alignementXOffset, self.bounds.size.height - 1);
    CGContextAddLineToPoint(ctx, alignementXOffset+textSize.width, self.bounds.size.height - 1);

    CGContextStrokePath(ctx);

    [super drawRect:rect];  
}


@end