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
– Fattie, Commented Jul 3, 2016 at 22:40

jab · Accepted Answer · 2013-10-03 20:27:01Z

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 3, 2013 at 20:27

jab

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9 Comments

palaniraja Over a year ago

this is not specific to iphone, the fix works for ipad air running ios 7.0.6

jab Over a year ago

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.

rharvey Over a year ago

Works for textColor as well

Kirti Nikam Over a year ago

Thanks, this trick works for me...I am using Xcode 6.2 and iOS 8.2.

tounaobun Over a year ago

Sadly still required in iOS9.

|

Satachito · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-17 06:38:19Z

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, 2013 at 6:38

Satachito

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3 Comments

Tom Kincaid Over a year ago

This was actually my problem too. Makes no sense.

Stephen O'Connor Over a year ago

Same here - set text to white in Storyboard - nothing happens stays "default" until I set "selectable" - why?

user1940321 Over a year ago

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.

Harry · Accepted Answer · 2013-10-01 11:04:57Z

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 1, 2013 at 11:04

Harry

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5 Comments

ToddB Over a year ago

This didn't work for me, but setting the font after setting the text did. Go figure. Thanks Apple!

Cameron E Over a year ago

checking "Selectable" or "editable" worked for me too. This is definitely a bug on Apple's end.

Kent Robin Over a year ago

This also applies to the text color in my case.

marco Over a year ago

Problem and solution still apply in iOS 9 (Xcode 7.3)

Murat Yasar Over a year ago

Shame on you Apple! Just stolen my hours!

Jordan Montel · Accepted Answer · 2013-10-03 20:35:18Z

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 3, 2013 at 20:35

Jordan Montel

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3 Comments

dragonflyesque Over a year ago

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.

Jordan Montel Over a year ago

@dragonflyesque yes... It was for iOS 6. Do you test on iOS 9 and same result ?

dragonflyesque Over a year ago

This helped me fix my issue for iOS 8.

Eugene Tartakovsky · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-10 14:53:01Z

13

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.

answered Mar 10, 2016 at 14:53

Eugene Tartakovsky

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Comments

Esqarrouth · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-07 21:05:20Z

11

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)

answered Dec 7, 2014 at 21:05

Esqarrouth

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Comments

Charlie S · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-23 19:37:28Z

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, 2015 at 19:37

Charlie S

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Comments

Daniel Belém Duarte · Accepted Answer · 2016-01-01 19:08:41Z

5

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,

answered Jan 1, 2016 at 19:08

Daniel Belém Duarte

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Comments

Anton Plebanovich · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-03 11:39:22Z

1

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
    }
}

answered May 3, 2017 at 11:39

Anton Plebanovich

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Comments

EvenBoy · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-09 07:51:04Z

0

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.

answered Apr 9, 2016 at 7:51

EvenBoy

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Comments

Can · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-22 17:25:28Z

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, 2017 at 17:25

Can

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Comments

Channel · Accepted Answer · 2020-08-13 06:13:02Z

0

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

answered Aug 13, 2020 at 6:13

Channel

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