UITextView - setting font not working with iOS 6 on XCode 5

Question

I'm using storyboards for my UI. I was previously using XCode 4.6 and released on iOS 6. I have since updated to iOS 7 using XCode 5 and updated the Storyboard to work nicely with XCode 5. I have one issue though:

UITextView doesn't want to display font changes within code. Text colour changes work fine. Any other property changes are fine. Font, not at all. I was using a custom font, so I checked different fonts with different sizes (i.e. systemFontOfSize:) but that didn't work. The text view only shows the font that's set in the Storyboard. What could I be missing here? Are there any auto-layout constraints that mess with this sort of thing? I had a few issues with constraints during the migration, but as I said, the fonts work fine in iOS 7.

I guess it's something in the Storyboard that I'm missing, as if I create a UIViewController and add a text view in code, it works fine.

I'd put up some code, but I'm not sure it'd help at all in this case.

This is the most bizarre bug in iOS, and it is still totally broken (mid 2016). — Fattie, Jul 03 '16 at 22:40

score 114 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 03 '13 at 20:27

114

Even stranger, this only happens on iPhone, not iPad.

If you're setting the font in code and don't want an editable text view, do this:

textView.editable = YES;
textView.font = newFont;
textView.editable = NO;

answered Oct 03 '13 at 20:27

jab

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this is not specific to iphone, the fix works for ipad air running ios 7.0.6 – palaniraja Mar 06 '14 at 10:23
Weird. The project where I discovered this, it affected iOS 6 iPhone but not iOS 6 iPad or iOS 7 anything. But it's good to verify that it's a general-purpose fix. – jab Mar 06 '14 at 18:30
I am having the same problem for UILabel. Have you any idea how to overcome this ? – Amrendra Pratap Singh Mar 26 '14 at 12:03
I didn't see this for labels. I'd suspect you don't have your IBOutlet connected correctly. Is your label nil? – jab Mar 27 '14 at 17:53
filed bug to apple radar #16781060 for this – Dannie P May 01 '14 at 12:58
2

Works for textColor as well – rharvey Jan 07 '15 at 16:28
1

Thanks, this trick works for me...I am using Xcode 6.2 and iOS 8.2. – Kirti Nikam Apr 19 '15 at 08:40
9

Sadly still required in iOS9. – tounaobun Aug 25 '15 at 02:55
I stuck in this issue many times and everytime, I came to this answer :D, Thanks a lot @jab – NSPratik Apr 20 '16 at 09:56

score 74 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 17 '13 at 06:38

74

In my case, it is matter of 'selectable' property of UITextView.

So I checked 'selectable' property of UITextView in Storyboard Editor to set it YES To set selectable

and later in viewWillAppear set this property to NO.

textview.text = @"some text";
textview.selectable = NO;

answered Dec 17 '13 at 06:38

Satachito

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This was actually my problem too. Makes no sense. – Tom Kincaid Feb 15 '14 at 01:41
1

Same here - set text to white in Storyboard - nothing happens stays "default" until I set "selectable" - why? – Stephen O'Connor Dec 23 '14 at 19:23
1

Worked for me as well. Although in talking with a co-worker we're thinking that this might be because it's causing the UITextView to re-draw. – Mar 14 '15 at 18:23

score 56 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 01 '13 at 11:04

56

The issue was caused by the editable property being false in the Storyboard. I have absolutely no idea why this caused the font to remain unchanged - and only on iOS 6.

answered Oct 01 '13 at 11:04

Harry

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This didn't work for me, but setting the font after setting the text did. Go figure. Thanks Apple! – ToddB Nov 30 '13 at 17:10
2

checking "Selectable" or "editable" worked for me too. This is definitely a bug on Apple's end. – Cameron E Dec 21 '14 at 02:49
This also applies to the text color in my case. – Kent Robin Jan 18 '15 at 11:58
2

Problem and solution still apply in iOS 9 (Xcode 7.3) – marco Jul 20 '16 at 17:37
Shame on you Apple! Just stolen my hours! – Murat Yasar Oct 11 '16 at 17:29

score 21 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 03 '13 at 20:35

21

For me it's work if you set the text of your UITextView and after set the font (same for color) :

_myTextView.text = @"text";
[_myTextView setFont:[UIFont fontWithName:@"Helvetica Neue" size:18.0f]];
_myTextView.textColor = [UIColor whiteColor];

answered Oct 03 '13 at 20:35

Jordan Montel

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It's crazy that we have to experiment with random cocktails of code to get the most basic things like this working. This the only one that worked for me. – dragonflyesque Dec 23 '15 at 16:53
@dragonflyesque yes... It was for iOS 6. Do you test on iOS 9 and same result ? – Jordan Montel Dec 23 '15 at 17:51
1

This helped me fix my issue for iOS 8. – dragonflyesque Dec 23 '15 at 18:09

score 13 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 10 '16 at 14:53

Thank you for all the answers guys. Issue is still present on iOS9. What i've found out, is that when you set "User Interaction Enabled = false" in the Interface Builder you can leave Editable and Selectable = true and user will not be able to edit a text view.

So, my solution is:

Set User Interaction Enabled = False in IB
Set Editable = True in IB
Set Selectable = True in IB
Configure your text view in whatever way you want.

score 11 · Answer 6 · answered Dec 07 '14 at 21:05

Code for swift:

textOutlet.editable = true
textOutlet.textColor = UIColor.whiteColor()
textOutlet.font = UIFont(name: "ArialMT", size: 20)
textOutlet.editable = false

Or if you change the text first it magically gets solved

textOutlet.text = "omg lol wtf"
textOutlet.textColor = UIColor.whiteColor()
textOutlet.font = UIFont(name: "ArialMT", size: 20)

score 7 · Answer 7 · answered Sep 23 '15 at 19:37

7

I found the font size was being ignored. This was resolved by ticking the checkbox called: Selectable (having selected the UITextView within the storyboard)

answered Sep 23 '15 at 19:37

Charlie S

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score 5 · Answer 8 · answered Jan 01 '16 at 19:08

This issue only happens when setting Selectable property to FALSE in the Interface Builder.

In case you are required to have the Editable and Selectable properties set to FALSE do it from the CODE and not in the Interface Builder.

Summing up, make Editable and Selectable properties = YES in the Interface Builder and then add the following code in case you need the properties to be FALSE:

_textView.editable   = NO;
_textView.selectable = NO;

Hope this helps,

score 1 · Answer 9 · answered May 03 '17 at 11:39

Swift 3 category that worked for me:

extension UITextView {
    func setFontAndUpdate(_ font: UIFont?) {
        self.font = font

        // Font doesn't update without text change
        let text = self.text
        self.text = nil
        self.text = text
    }
}

score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Apr 09 '16 at 07:51

In my case(Developing on Xcode 7.3, iOS 9),

The cause was the order of setting text and font-family/size, not the options of editable or selectable many answers tell there.(and I don't get any storyboard, xib on that Textview.)

If I input like

[myTextView setFont:[UIFont fontWithName:@"HelveticaNeue-Italic" size:20]];
myTextView.attributedText = mAttStr;

then the font's family and size are not changed, but else when I reverse those two step, it works. Setting text should be ahead of setting font's family/size.

score 0 · Answer 11 · answered Mar 22 '17 at 17:25

0

As mentioned by others:

textView.font = UIFont.systemFont(ofSize: 16)
textView.isEditable = false

p.s. no need to first set isEditable as true since it's true by default: a little shorter, a little nicer

answered Mar 22 '17 at 17:25

Can

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score 0 · Answer 12 · answered Aug 13 '20 at 06:13

0

In my case, I solved by setting the new font in "viewDidLayoutSubviews".

answered Aug 13 '20 at 06:13

Channel

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UITextView - setting font not working with iOS 6 on XCode 5

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