119

I have some HTML data, which contains headings, paragraphs , images and lists tags.

Is there a way to display this data in one UITextView or UILabel?

mfaani
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Talha Ahmad Khan
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16 Answers16

285

For Swift 5:

extension String {
    var htmlToAttributedString: NSAttributedString? {
        guard let data = data(using: .utf8) else { return nil }
        do {
            return try NSAttributedString(data: data, options: [.documentType: NSAttributedString.DocumentType.html, .characterEncoding:String.Encoding.utf8.rawValue], documentAttributes: nil)
        } catch {
            return nil
        }
    }
    var htmlToString: String {
        return htmlToAttributedString?.string ?? ""
    }
}

Then, whenever you want to put HTML text in a UITextView use:

textView.attributedText = htmlText.htmlToAttributedString
Michal Šrůtek
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Roger Carvalho
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36

Here is a Swift 3 version:

private func getHtmlLabel(text: String) -> UILabel {
    let label = UILabel()
    label.numberOfLines = 0
    label.lineBreakMode = .byWordWrapping
    label.attributedString = stringFromHtml(string: text)
    return label
}

private func stringFromHtml(string: String) -> NSAttributedString? {
    do {
        let data = string.data(using: String.Encoding.utf8, allowLossyConversion: true)
        if let d = data {
            let str = try NSAttributedString(data: d,
                                             options: [NSDocumentTypeDocumentAttribute: NSHTMLTextDocumentType],
                                             documentAttributes: nil)
            return str
        }
    } catch {
    }
    return nil
}

I found issues with some of the other answers here and it took me a bit to get this right. I set the line break mode and number of lines so that the label sized appropriately when the HTML spanned multiple lines.

garie
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    The HTML's parsed... but incorrectly. The tags no longer appear, but the bold text isn't displayed. I don't know which tags are supported, maybe `` is not. – Pablo Apr 24 '17 at 21:08
  • Bold tags work fine for me. Can you post your full html that isn't working? Maybe the font you are using doesn't show bold well. – garie May 03 '17 at 13:51
  • The html is just text from a CMS editor, encoded to return on a JSON string. The app access the web service, gets the JSON that contains this specific text object - the requirement from the client here is the possibility of adding html tags to the text, similar to a CMS (wordpress) of a website. Maybe I'm encoding the return incorrectly? When I parse the JSON, I print the string return on debug and appears correctly, including the '', but on both the emulator and the device for tests, the tags won't work. I'm using Swift 3. – Pablo May 03 '17 at 20:08
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    How can I add custom font? – Bhavin Ramani Jul 14 '17 at 05:49
16

Add this extension to convert your html code to a regular string:

    extension String {

        var html2AttributedString: NSAttributedString? {
            guard
                let data = dataUsingEncoding(NSUTF8StringEncoding)
            else { return nil }
            do {
                return try NSAttributedString(data: data, options: [NSDocumentTypeDocumentAttribute:NSHTMLTextDocumentType,NSCharacterEncodingDocumentAttribute:NSUTF8StringEncoding], documentAttributes: nil)
            } catch let error as NSError {
                print(error.localizedDescription)
                return  nil
            }
        }
        var html2String: String {
            return html2AttributedString?.string ?? ""
        }
}

And then you show your String inside an UITextView Or UILabel

textView.text = yourString.html2String or

label.text = yourString.html2String
Vinodh
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Himanshu
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    Yes but it only works for text in the HTML. I was also concerned about the images and the lists. Is there any way to display the images and lists is single object?? – Talha Ahmad Khan May 05 '16 at 11:28
  • @TalhaAhmadKhan you can directly use a UIWebView if you have Images. TextView or labels will not work out as you know. – Sathe_Nagaraja Feb 23 '18 at 23:27
16

For Swift 5, it also can load css.

extension String {
    public var convertHtmlToNSAttributedString: NSAttributedString? {
        guard let data = data(using: .utf8) else {
            return nil
        }
        do {
            return try NSAttributedString(data: data,options: [.documentType: NSAttributedString.DocumentType.html,.characterEncoding: String.Encoding.utf8.rawValue], documentAttributes: nil)
        }
        catch {
            print(error.localizedDescription)
            return nil
        }
    }

    public func convertHtmlToAttributedStringWithCSS(font: UIFont? , csscolor: String , lineheight: Int, csstextalign: String) -> NSAttributedString? {
        guard let font = font else {
            return convertHtmlToNSAttributedString
        }
        let modifiedString = "<style>body{font-family: '\(font.fontName)'; font-size:\(font.pointSize)px; color: \(csscolor); line-height: \(lineheight)px; text-align: \(csstextalign); }</style>\(self)";
        guard let data = modifiedString.data(using: .utf8) else {
            return nil
        }
        do {
            return try NSAttributedString(data: data, options: [.documentType: NSAttributedString.DocumentType.html, .characterEncoding: String.Encoding.utf8.rawValue], documentAttributes: nil)
        }
        catch {
            print(error)
            return nil
        }
    }
}

After that, go to your string you want to convert to NSAttributedString and place it like the example below:

myUILabel.attributedText = "Swift is awesome&#33;&#33;&#33;".convertHtmlToAttributedStringWithCSS(font: UIFont(name: "Arial", size: 16), csscolor: "black", lineheight: 5, csstextalign: "center")

enter image description here Here’s what every parameter takes:

  • font: Add your font as usually do in a UILabel/UITextView, using UIFont with the name of your custom font and the size.
  • csscolor: Either add color in HEX format, like "#000000" or use the name of the color, like "black".
  • lineheight: It’s the space between the lines when you have multiple lines in a UILabel/UITextView.
  • csstextalign: It’s the alignment of the text, the value that you need to add is "left" or "right" or "center" or "justify"

Reference: https://johncodeos.com/how-to-display-html-in-uitextview-uilabel-with-custom-color-font-etc-in-ios-using-swift/

Zgpeace
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11

I had problems to change attributes of text after that, and I could see others asking why...

So best answer is to use extension with NSMutableAttributedString instead:

extension String {

 var htmlToAttributedString: NSMutableAttributedString? {
    guard let data = data(using: .utf8) else { return nil }
    do {
        return try NSMutableAttributedString(data: data,
                                      options: [.documentType: NSMutableAttributedString.DocumentType.html,
                                                .characterEncoding: String.Encoding.utf8.rawValue],
                                      documentAttributes: nil)
    } catch let error as NSError {
        print(error.localizedDescription)
        return  nil
    }
 }

}

And then you can use it this way:

if let labelTextFormatted = text.htmlToAttributedString {
                let textAttributes = [
                    NSAttributedStringKey.foregroundColor: UIColor.white,
                    NSAttributedStringKey.font: UIFont.boldSystemFont(ofSize: 13)
                    ] as [NSAttributedStringKey: Any]
                labelTextFormatted.addAttributes(textAttributes, range: NSRange(location: 0, length: labelTextFormatted.length))
                self.contentText.attributedText = labelTextFormatted
            }
Kassy Barb
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8

Swift 5

extension UIColor {
    var hexString: String {
        let components = cgColor.components
        let r: CGFloat = components?[0] ?? 0.0
        let g: CGFloat = components?[1] ?? 0.0
        let b: CGFloat = components?[2] ?? 0.0

        let hexString = String(format: "#%02lX%02lX%02lX", lroundf(Float(r * 255)), lroundf(Float(g * 255)),
                               lroundf(Float(b * 255)))

        return hexString
    }
}
extension String {
    func htmlAttributed(family: String?, size: CGFloat, color: UIColor) -> NSAttributedString? {
        do {
            let htmlCSSString = "<style>" +
                "html *" +
                "{" +
                "font-size: \(size)pt !important;" +
                "color: #\(color.hexString) !important;" +
                "font-family: \(family ?? "Helvetica"), Helvetica !important;" +
            "}</style> \(self)"

            guard let data = htmlCSSString.data(using: String.Encoding.utf8) else {
                return nil
            }

            return try NSAttributedString(data: data,
                                          options: [.documentType: NSAttributedString.DocumentType.html,
                                                    .characterEncoding: String.Encoding.utf8.rawValue],
                                          documentAttributes: nil)
        } catch {
            print("error: ", error)
            return nil
        }
    }
}

And final you can create UILabel:

func createHtmlLabel(with html: String) -> UILabel {
    let htmlMock = """
    <b>hello</b>, <i>world</i>
    """

    let descriprionLabel = UILabel()
    descriprionLabel.attributedText = htmlMock.htmlAttributed(family: "YourFontFamily", size: 15, color: .red)

    return descriprionLabel
}

Result:

enter image description here

See tutorial:

https://medium.com/@valv0/a-swift-extension-for-string-and-html-8cfb7477a510

oscarr
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7

Swift 3.0

var attrStr = try! NSAttributedString(
        data: "<b><i>text</i></b>".data(using: String.Encoding.unicode, allowLossyConversion: true)!,
        options: [ NSDocumentTypeDocumentAttribute: NSHTMLTextDocumentType],
        documentAttributes: nil)
label.attributedText = attrStr
Ved Rauniyar
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7

I'm using this:

extension UILabel {
    func setHTML(html: String) {
        do {
            let attributedString: NSAttributedString = try NSAttributedString(data: html.data(using: .utf8)!, options: [NSDocumentTypeDocumentAttribute : NSHTMLTextDocumentType], documentAttributes: nil)
            self.attributedText = attributedString
        } catch {
            self.text = html
        }
    }
}
Community
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    This is good but will only apply to UILabel. It would be much better if it is generic extension which should take html and convert into attributed text. – i.AsifNoor Sep 10 '19 at 15:32
5

Swift 3

extension String {


var html2AttributedString: NSAttributedString? {
    guard
        let data = data(using: String.Encoding.utf8)
        else { return nil }
    do {
        return try NSAttributedString(data: data, options: [NSDocumentTypeDocumentAttribute:NSHTMLTextDocumentType,NSCharacterEncodingDocumentAttribute:String.Encoding.utf8], documentAttributes: nil)
    } catch let error as NSError {
        print(error.localizedDescription)
        return  nil
    }
}
var html2String: String {
    return html2AttributedString?.string ?? ""
 }
}
Divyang Desai
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Alex Morel
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3

Thx for the above answer here is Swift 4.2


extension String {

    var htmlToAttributedString: NSAttributedString? {
        guard
            let data = self.data(using: .utf8)
            else { return nil }
        do {
            return try NSAttributedString(data: data, options: [
                NSAttributedString.DocumentReadingOptionKey.documentType: NSAttributedString.DocumentType.html,
                NSAttributedString.DocumentReadingOptionKey.characterEncoding: String.Encoding.utf8.rawValue
                ], documentAttributes: nil)
        } catch let error as NSError {
            print(error.localizedDescription)
            return  nil
        }
    }

    var htmlToString: String {
        return htmlToAttributedString?.string ?? ""
    }
}
Stephen Chen
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2

Try this:

let label : UILable! = String.stringFromHTML("html String")

func stringFromHTML( string: String?) -> String
    {
        do{
            let str = try NSAttributedString(data:string!.dataUsingEncoding(NSUTF8StringEncoding, allowLossyConversion: true
                )!, options:[NSDocumentTypeDocumentAttribute: NSHTMLTextDocumentType, NSCharacterEncodingDocumentAttribute: NSNumber(unsignedLong: NSUTF8StringEncoding)], documentAttributes: nil)
            return str.string
        } catch
        {
            print("html error\n",error)
        }
        return ""
    }

Hope its helpful.

Forge
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Iyyappan Ravi
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  • Yes but it only works for text in the HTML. I was also concerned about the images and the lists. Is there any way to display the images and lists is single object?? – Talha Ahmad Khan May 05 '16 at 11:28
  • 3
    It should be noted that using `NSHTMLTextDocumentType` is _incredibly_ slow [1]. Try and use a library like [DDHTML](https://github.com/dbowen/NSAttributedString-DDHTML) instead. [1] http://www.robpeck.com/2015/04/nshtmltextdocumenttype-is-slow/ – Christopher Kevin Howell May 05 '16 at 15:52
2

Swift 5

extension String {
    func htmlAttributedString() -> NSAttributedString? {
        guard let data = self.data(using: String.Encoding.utf16, allowLossyConversion: false) else { return nil }
        guard let html = try? NSMutableAttributedString(
            data: data,
            options: [NSAttributedString.DocumentReadingOptionKey.documentType: NSAttributedString.DocumentType.html],
            documentAttributes: nil) else { return nil }
        return html
    }
}

Call:

myLabel.attributedText = "myString".htmlAttributedString()
Álvaro Agüero
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2
extension UITextView {
    func setHTMLFromString(htmlText: String) {
        let modifiedFont = String(format:"<span style=\"font-family: '-apple-system', 'HelveticaNeue'; font-size: \(self.font!.pointSize)\">%@</span>", htmlText)

        let attrStr = try! NSAttributedString(
            data: modifiedFont.data(using: .utf8, allowLossyConversion: true)!,
            options: [.documentType: NSAttributedString.DocumentType.html, .characterEncoding:String.Encoding.utf8.rawValue],
            documentAttributes: nil)

        self.attributedText = attrStr
    }
}
Nguyễn Văn Phong
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Emty
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  • I have got a memory leek due to using NSAttributedString.DocumentType.html – Alexei Mikhailov Aug 12 '22 at 12:22
  • I've been getting a fatal error when it tries to initialize the NSMutableAttributedString.init. Did someone have the same problem? specialized @nonobjc NSMutableAttributedString.init(data:options:documentAttributes:) – Caco Cavalcanti Nov 03 '22 at 13:52
1

Display images and text paragraphs is not possible in a UITextView or UILabel, to this, you must use a UIWebView.

Just add the item in the storyboard, link to your code, and call it to load the URL.

OBJ-C

NSString *fullURL = @"http://conecode.com";
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:fullURL];
NSURLRequest *requestObj = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:url];
[_viewWeb loadRequest:requestObj];

Swift

let url = NSURL (string: "http://www.sourcefreeze.com");
let requestObj = NSURLRequest(URL: url!);
viewWeb.loadRequest(requestObj);

Step by step tutorial. http://sourcefreeze.com/uiwebview-example-using-swift-in-ios/

Forge
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Ulysses
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1

If you want HTML, with images and a list, this isn't support by UILabel. However, I've found YYText does the trick.

  • It's supported if you encode the string properly. There's an attributedString extension for HTML floating around somewhere – froggomad Apr 23 '18 at 02:14
-1

IF YOU HAVE A STRING WITH HTML CODE INSIDE YOU CAN USE:

extension String {
var utfData: Data? {
        return self.data(using: .utf8)
    }

    var htmlAttributedString: NSAttributedString? {
        guard let data = self.utfData else {
            return nil
        }
        do {
            return try NSAttributedString(data: data,
                                          options: [
                                            .documentType: NSAttributedString.DocumentType.html,
                                            .characterEncoding: String.Encoding.utf8.rawValue
                ], documentAttributes: nil)
        } catch {
            print(error.localizedDescription)
            return nil
        }
    }

    var htmlString: String {
        return htmlAttributedString?.string ?? self 
    }
}

AND IN YOUR CODE YOU USE:

label.text = "something".htmlString