Cocoa NSTextField line spacing

Question

I'm struggling with a very simple problem, I've several NSTextField ( I can't use NSTextView right now) and I need to change the line spacing of the displayed text. What can I do to reduce row height or line spacing? Shrinking the font size isn't an option.

Any help would be really appreciated!

Have a great weekend,

!)

Why can't you use NSTextView? NSTextField is generally used for single line text fields. — sidyll, Dec 02 '11 at 13:21

Jason Harrison · Answer 1 · 2015-11-01T14:24:34.307

For reference you want to read this description of paragraph styles: Cocoa Paragraph Styles and note that everything in there is additional space added between lines, between paragraphs, before paragraphs, etc. You can set the values in your NSMutableParagraphStyle to zero but no lower.

To further shrink the spacing between lines, use setMaximumLineHeight, thanks to "6 1" for the code (I've add the setMaximumLineHeight):

NSString *title = @"title here";
NSFont *bold14 = [NSFont boldSystemFontOfSize:14.0];
NSColor *textColor = [NSColor redColor];
NSMutableParagraphStyle *textParagraph = [[NSMutableParagraphStyle alloc] init];
[textParagraph setLineSpacing:10.0];  // this sets the space BETWEEN lines to 10points
[textParagraph setMaximumLineHeight:12.0]; this sets the MAXIMUM height of the lines to 12points

NSDictionary *attrDic = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:bold14, NSFontAttributeName, textColor, NSForegroundColorAttributeName, textParagraph, NSParagraphStyleAttributeName, nil];
NSAttributedString *attrString = [[NSAttributedString alloc] initWithString:title attributes:attrDic]; 
[self.titleField setAllowsEditingTextAttributes:YES];
[self.titleField setAttributedStringValue:attrString];

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 17 '16 at 11:26

Swift version of Jason Harrison's excellent Obj-c answer:

let title:String = "title here"
let bold14:NSFont = NSFont.boldSystemFontOfSize(14.0)
let textColor:NSColor = NSColor.redColor()
let textParagraph:NSMutableParagraphStyle = NSMutableParagraphStyle()
textParagraph.lineSpacing = 10.0  /*this sets the space BETWEEN lines to 10points*/
textParagraph.maximumLineHeight = 12.0/*this sets the MAXIMUM height of the lines to 12points*/
let attribs = [NSFontAttributeName:bold14,NSForegroundColorAttributeName:textColor,NSParagraphStyleAttributeName:textParagraph]
let attrString:NSAttributedString = NSAttributedString.init(string: title, attributes: attribs)
textField.attributedStringValue = attrString

I wanted the text to be more compact vertically, but if I went bellow the font size, the text would get clipped by the frame. A workaround was to offset the textField.bounds.origin.y value with a couple of pixels. Basically: (font.size - leading) — Sentry.co, Aug 17 '16 at 14:58

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 25 '12 at 02:08

you can use NSAttributedString to show the text.

NSFont *bold14 = [NSFont boldSystemFontOfSize:14.0];
NSColor *textColor = [NSColor redColor];
NSMutableParagraphStyle *textParagraph = [[NSMutableParagraphStyle alloc] init];
[textParagraph setLineSpacing:10.0];

NSDictionary *attrDic = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:bold14, NSFontAttributeName, textColor, NSForegroundColorAttributeName, textParagraph, NSParagraphStyleAttributeName, nil];
NSAttributedString *attrString = [[NSAttributedString alloc] initWithString:title attributes:attrDic]; 
[self.titleField setAllowsEditingTextAttributes:YES];
[self.titleField setAttributedStringValue:attrString];

It's ok to display text not for inputing text. And I only know how to set line spacing.

Cocoa NSTextField line spacing

3 Answers3