iPhone UILabel - non breaking space

Question

Is there a way to use non breaking spaces in UILabel text?

For example, I have label with 2 lines and line breaking mode set to word wrap. The content for this label is read from database, where it's stored as a string. Now sometimes my text in label looks like that:

lorem ipsum some text
1

but I want to display it like that:

lorem ipsum some
text 1

so basicly, I need to force non breaking space between 'text' and '1'.

I've found some solution here, but I think it could work when the text is entered in source code file. In my case the text is in database.

Any suggestions?

score 59 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 29 '13 at 03:10

59

Use the no-break space (\u00a0) ex: @"hello**\u00a0**world!"

post.text = [postText stringByAppendingString: @"1\u00a0hour\u00a0ago."];

U+00A0 / no-break space / Common Separator, space

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitespace_character

answered Mar 29 '13 at 03:10

Robby Valles

591
4
4

32

To get this to work in my Localizable.strings file, I had to use all caps: `\U00A0`. – Adam Sharp Jun 19 '13 at 03:40

score 40 · Answer 2 · answered May 12 '15 at 14:37

40

For Swift:

let sentence = "Barcelona, Real Madryt, Juventus Turyn, Bayern Monachium"
let sentencewithnbsp = String(map(sentence.generate()) {
    $0 == " " ? "\u{00a0}" : $0
})

answered May 12 '15 at 14:37

Bartłomiej Semańczyk

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9

It's also possible to use `\u{00a0}` directly in string without using the `map` function – `lorem\u{00a0}ipsum` – zvonicek Apr 09 '16 at 12:52
1

If you use Localizable.strings, the Unicode value should be uppercase: `hello\U00A0world` – Justin Vallely Mar 12 '19 at 21:36

ronatory · Answer 3 · 2020-02-13T06:51:56.850

21

In Swift 4 I had to use all caps: \U00A0

Example:

lorem ipsum some\U00A0text 1

Update Feb 2020 from the comments. Thanks to @corban:

In the Localizable.strings file it still needs to be \U00A0 - in code you have to use \u{00a0}

edited Feb 13 '20 at 06:51

answered Feb 09 '18 at 14:08

ronatory

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1

In the Localizable.strings file it still needs to be `\U00A0` - in code you have to use `\u{00a0}`. – corban Feb 13 '20 at 06:18
It should be: `lorem ipsum some text\u{00a0}1` for swift. The `\u{00a0}` needs to be between the words you don't want to break. – Slaknation Feb 13 '20 at 19:52

Gino · Answer 4 · 2017-11-28T03:19:05.290

16

If you want to get this to work in a .strings file, you can type OPTION + SPACE instead of a regular space.

.strings files are usually UTF-8 encoded, so if you open it in Hex view, you will see "C2 A0" in place of the special space character.

edited Nov 28 '17 at 03:19

answered Oct 03 '16 at 20:05

Gino

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5

Thanks for the option+space tip - I didn't know this worked for anything other than new lines! – Jon Hocking Apr 06 '17 at 13:48

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Dec 19 '17 at 17:21

1

Here's a Swift extension to fix an orphan in a string by replacing the last space with a non-breaking space:

extension String {
    var replacingLastSpace: String {
        if let lastSpace = range(of: " ", options: .backwards, locale: .current) {
            return replacingCharacters(in: lastSpace, with: "\u{00a0}")
        }
        return self
    }
}

Although note as of iOS 11, UILabels solve this problem automatically.

answered Dec 19 '17 at 17:21

neave

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1
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18

yes if you need to support Android with unbreakable spaces, then use `\u00A0` in the translation and you in Xcode after loading the translation, do `localizedString.replacingOccurrences(of: "u00A0", with: "\u{00a0}")` – Samuël Mar 20 '23 at 12:56

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 24 '11 at 13:10

1

In Inspector set number of lines for Label as 3 or 4 What ever you require Then the Content will be displayed in multiple lines.

answered Feb 24 '11 at 13:10

SNR

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2
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The number of lines is set to 5. That's not a problem. As you can see the text is displayed anyway in 2 lines, in my first and second example. The problem is that I don't want those separated '1' in another line. – Marcin Feb 24 '11 at 13:13
Then set number of lines as 1 and in "adjust to fit" decrease the font size. – SNR Feb 24 '11 at 13:18
That's not a good option for me, because I want fixed font sizes (for example, to have the same font size as in other labels, with different texts). – Marcin Feb 24 '11 at 13:26

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Feb 24 '11 at 13:30

You may need to implement a custom word-wrapping function.

// pseudo-code
instring;

get len(instring)
if len > textedit.width*charFontSize
    for (textedit.width*charFontSize ) // cycle through string
        insert `\n` into inString at shortest whitespace

or something like that.

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Feb 24 '11 at 13:34

1

I don't think there's a simple way to do this with UILabel. Of course one way to achieve the same effect is to manually insert a "\n" before "text" in your example. Another option is to use a UIWebView with static HTML instead of the UILabel, so you can use an actual &nbsp.

answered Feb 24 '11 at 13:34

Martin Gjaldbaek

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Finally, I've done this by inserting "\n" in my texts. Not exactly what I've tried to do, but anyway, works. – Marcin Feb 26 '11 at 09:39

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Feb 24 '11 at 13:31

0

If this is not going to happen often, you can do this:

NSString *string = @"lorem ipsum some \ntext 1";

label.text = string;

You can dynamically generate where you put the \n using character counts, word counts etc...

answered Feb 24 '11 at 13:31

Aurum Aquila

9,126
4
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iPhone UILabel - non breaking space

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