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

In Swift:

let underlineAttriString = NSAttributedString(string: "attriString",
                                          attributes: [NSAttributedString.Key.underlineStyle: NSUnderlineStyle.single.rawValue])
label.attributedText = underlineAttriString

Answer 2

You can create a custom label with name UnderlinedLabel and edit drawRect function.

#import "UnderlinedLabel.h"

@implementation UnderlinedLabel

- (void)drawRect:(CGRect)rect
{
   NSString *normalTex = self.text;
   NSDictionary *underlineAttribute = @{NSUnderlineStyleAttributeName: @(NSUnderlineStyleSingle)};
   self.attributedText = [[NSAttributedString alloc] initWithString:normalTex
                                                      attributes:underlineAttribute];

   [super drawRect:rect];
}

Answer 3

I use an open source line view and just added it to the button subviews:

 UILabel *label = termsButton.titleLabel;
 CGRect frame = label.frame;
 frame.origin.y += frame.size.height - 1;
 frame.size.height = 1;
 SSLineView *line = [[SSLineView alloc] initWithFrame:frame];
 line.lineColor = [UIColor lightGrayColor];
 [termsButton addSubview:line];

This was inspired by Karim above.

Answer 4

People, who do not want to subclass the view (UILabel/UIButton) etc... 'forgetButton' can be replace by any lable too.

-(void) drawUnderlinedLabel {
    NSString *string = [forgetButton titleForState:UIControlStateNormal];
    CGSize stringSize = [string sizeWithFont:forgetButton.titleLabel.font];
    CGRect buttonFrame = forgetButton.frame;
    CGRect labelFrame = CGRectMake(buttonFrame.origin.x + buttonFrame.size.width - stringSize.width, 
            buttonFrame.origin.y + stringSize.height + 1 , 
            stringSize.width, 2);
    UILabel *lineLabel = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:labelFrame];
    lineLabel.backgroundColor = [UIColor blackColor];
    //[forgetButton addSubview:lineLabel];
    [self.view addSubview:lineLabel];
}

Answer 5

NSString *tem =self.detailCustomerCRMCaseLabel.text;
if (tem != nil && ![tem isEqualToString:@""]) {
    NSMutableAttributedString *temString=[[NSMutableAttributedString alloc]initWithString:tem];
    [temString addAttribute:NSUnderlineStyleAttributeName
                      value:[NSNumber numberWithInt:1]
                      range:(NSRange){0,[temString length]}];
    self.detailCustomerCRMCaseLabel.attributedText = temString;
}

Answer 6

Here's another, simpler solution (underline's width is not most accurate but it was good enough for me)

I have a UIView (_view_underline) that has White background, height of 1 pixel and I update its width everytime I update the text

// It's a shame you have to do custom stuff to underline text
- (void) underline  {
    float width = [[_txt_title text] length] * 10.0f;
    CGRect prev_frame = [_view_underline frame];
    prev_frame.size.width = width;
    [_view_underline setFrame:prev_frame];
}