How to align text horizontally & vertically in UITextView?

Question

How to align text horizontally & vertically in UITextView? I want align text in UITextView with horizontal alignment & vertical alignment. Is there any custom way? Please help me out.....

score 26 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 06 '15 at 17:34

26

This is a Swift solution and is different now since content insets and offsets have changed slightly. This solution works in Xcode 7 beta 6.

override func viewWillAppear(animated: Bool) {
    super.viewWillAppear(animated)
    textView.addObserver(self, forKeyPath: "contentSize", options: NSKeyValueObservingOptions.New, context: nil)
}

override func viewWillDisappear(animated: Bool) {
    super.viewWillDisappear(animated)
    textView.removeObserver(self, forKeyPath: "contentSize")
}

Apple has changed how content offsets and insets work this slightly modified solution is now required to set the top on the content inset instead of the offset.

/// Force the text in a UITextView to always center itself.
override func observeValueForKeyPath(keyPath: String?, ofObject object: AnyObject?, change: [String : AnyObject]?, context: UnsafeMutablePointer<Void>) {
    let textView = object as! UITextView
    var topCorrect = (textView.bounds.size.height - textView.contentSize.height * textView.zoomScale) / 2
    topCorrect = topCorrect < 0.0 ? 0.0 : topCorrect;
    textView.contentInset.top = topCorrect
}

answered Sep 06 '15 at 17:34

Hamer

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This worked great for me with IOS 9/ Swift 2 thanks! – Kitson Oct 18 '15 at 17:08
This worked but if I have more than one UITextField, it only applies to one of them – Ashish Musale Jun 04 '16 at 08:56
2

not working in Xcode 8. does anyone have any ideas how to do this? – George Asda Jan 14 '17 at 12:06
Anybody achieved this with iOS 10, Swift 3 & Xcode 8? – gaskbr Jan 27 '17 at 17:54
Working fine for me on iOS 10, Swift 3, Xcode 8. (Slight syntax changes needed) – David Schmoecker May 09 '17 at 20:15
In swift 4.2, override func observeValue(forKeyPath keyPath: String?, of object: Any?, change: [NSKeyValueChangeKey : Any]?, context: UnsafeMutableRawPointer?) { let textView = object as! UITextView var topCorrect = (textView.bounds.size.height - textView.contentSize.height * textView.zoomScale) / 2 topCorrect = topCorrect < 0.0 ? 0.0 : topCorrect; textView.contentInset.top = topCorrect } – iOSDev May 07 '20 at 12:07

score 7 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 09 '16 at 06:01

7

As far as I know there is no built in method for vertical alignment of a UITextView. However, by updating the the contentOffset you can get vertically centered text:

[textView setTextAlignment:NSTextAlignmentCenter];

- (void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated {
    [super viewWillAppear:animated];
    [textView addObserver:self forKeyPath:@"contentSize" options:(NSKeyValueObservingOptionNew) context:NULL];
}

- (void)viewWillDisappear:(BOOL)animated {
    [super viewWillDisappear:animated];
    [textView removeObserver:self forKeyPath:@"contentSize"];
}

-(void)observeValueForKeyPath:(NSString *)keyPath ofObject:(id)object change:(NSDictionary *)change context:(void *)context 
{
    UITextView *tv = object;
    CGFloat topCorrect = ([tv bounds].size.height - [tv contentSize].height * [tv zoomScale])/2.0;
    topCorrect = ( topCorrect < 0.0 ? 0.0 : topCorrect );
    tv.contentOffset = (CGPoint){.x = 0, .y = -topCorrect};
}

edited Sep 09 '16 at 06:01

ita9178

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answered Feb 10 '14 at 06:48

Gad

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Where does this code go? (ViewController.m?) – Erika Electra Jun 19 '14 at 13:23
@Cindeselia The way the code is currently written, you would need to add it where your text view is located. – Gad Jun 22 '14 at 08:26
Note that changing contentOffset only seems to work if the text view's "Selectable" flag is checked – Maiaux Oct 01 '14 at 13:09

score 5 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 15 '15 at 21:17

Vertically aligning middle with Swift:

In viewDidLoad:

textField.addObserver(self, forKeyPath: "contentSize", options: NSKeyValueObservingOptions.New, context: nil)

Then somewhere else in your view controller:

override func observeValueForKeyPath(keyPath: String, ofObject object: AnyObject, change: [NSObject : AnyObject], context: UnsafeMutablePointer<Void>) {

    var topCorrect : CGFloat = (textField.frame.height - textField.contentSize.height);
    topCorrect = topCorrect < 0.0 ? 0.0 : topCorrect / 2
    textField.contentOffset = CGPoint(x: 0, y: -topCorrect)

}

where textField is wired up to the actual text field in your view.

that works properly but somehow it doesn't work with an unwind segue... any idea why? — SKYnine, Sep 06 '15 at 19:16

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 10 '14 at 07:44

You should provide the context on what you mean to do when you want to change the horizontal and vertical alignment,

The UITextview has a container and a frame property that you can align with another UITextview/ Imageview, etc. The frame property has an origin and a size that you can modify to align your views.

The text within the UITextview has a property called the textalignment which you can set to NSTextAlignmentLeft, NSTextAlignmentJustified, As suggested, you may also adjust the content offset property of the container but I find that adjusting the frame is more straight forward.

How to align text horizontally & vertically in UITextView?

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