Adding space/padding to a UILabel

Question

I have tried with it on Swift 4.2, hopefully it work for you!

@IBDesignable class PaddingLabel: UILabel {

    @IBInspectable var topInset: CGFloat = 5.0
    @IBInspectable var bottomInset: CGFloat = 5.0
    @IBInspectable var leftInset: CGFloat = 7.0
    @IBInspectable var rightInset: CGFloat = 7.0

    override func drawText(in rect: CGRect) {
        let insets = UIEdgeInsets(top: topInset, left: leftInset, bottom: bottomInset, right: rightInset)
        super.drawText(in: rect.inset(by: insets))
    }

    override var intrinsicContentSize: CGSize {
        let size = super.intrinsicContentSize
        return CGSize(width: size.width + leftInset + rightInset,
                      height: size.height + topInset + bottomInset)
    }   

    override var bounds: CGRect {
        didSet {
            // ensures this works within stack views if multi-line
            preferredMaxLayoutWidth = bounds.width - (leftInset + rightInset)
        }
    } 
}

Or you can use CocoaPods here https://github.com/levantAJ/PaddingLabel

pod 'PaddingLabel', '1.2'

If you want to stick with UILabel, without subclassing it, Mundi has given you a clear solution.

If alternatively, you would be willing to avoid wrapping the UILabel with a UIView, you could use UITextView to enable the use of UIEdgeInsets (padding) or subclass UILabel to support UIEdgeInsets.

Using a UITextView would only need to provide the insets (Objective-C):

textView.textContainerInset = UIEdgeInsetsMake(10, 0, 10, 0);

Alternative, if you subclass UILabel, an example to this approach would be overriding the drawTextInRect method
(Objective-C)

- (void)drawTextInRect:(CGRect)uiLabelRect {
    UIEdgeInsets myLabelInsets = {10, 0, 10, 0};
    [super drawTextInRect:UIEdgeInsetsInsetRect(uiLabelRect, myLabelInsets)];
}

You could additionally provide your new subclassed UILabel with insets variables for TOP, LEFT, BOTTOM and RIGHT.

An example code could be:

In .h (Objective-C)

float topInset, leftInset,bottomInset, rightInset;

In .m (Objective-C)

- (void)drawTextInRect:(CGRect)uiLabelRect {
    [super drawTextInRect:UIEdgeInsetsInsetRect(uiLabelRect, UIEdgeInsetsMake(topInset,leftInset,bottomInset,rightInset))];
}

From what I have seen, it seems you have to override the intrinsicContentSize of the UILabel when subclassing it.

So you should override intrinsicContentSize like:

- (CGSize) intrinsicContentSize {
    CGSize intrinsicSuperViewContentSize = [super intrinsicContentSize] ;
    intrinsicSuperViewContentSize.height += topInset + bottomInset ;
    intrinsicSuperViewContentSize.width += leftInset + rightInset ;
    return intrinsicSuperViewContentSize ;
}

And add the following method to edit your insets, instead of editing them individually:

- (void) setContentEdgeInsets:(UIEdgeInsets)edgeInsets {
    topInset = edgeInsets.top;
    leftInset = edgeInsets.left;
    rightInset = edgeInsets.right;
    bottomInset = edgeInsets.bottom;
    [self invalidateIntrinsicContentSize] ;
}

It will update the size of your UILabel to match the edge insets and cover the multiline necessity you referred to.

After searching a bit I have found this Gist with an IPInsetLabel. If none of those solutions work you could try it out.

There was a similar question (duplicate) about this matter.
For a full list of available solutions, see this answer: UILabel text margin

You can do it properly from IB :

1. change the text to attributed

2. go to dropdown list with "..."

3. you will see some padding properties for the lines, paragraphs and text change indent first line or anything you want

4. check the result

Swift 3

import UIKit

class PaddingLabel: UILabel {

   @IBInspectable var topInset: CGFloat = 5.0
   @IBInspectable var bottomInset: CGFloat = 5.0
   @IBInspectable var leftInset: CGFloat = 5.0
   @IBInspectable var rightInset: CGFloat = 5.0

   override func drawText(in rect: CGRect) {
      let insets = UIEdgeInsets(top: topInset, left: leftInset, bottom: bottomInset, right: rightInset)
      super.drawText(in: UIEdgeInsetsInsetRect(rect, insets))
   }

   override var intrinsicContentSize: CGSize {
      get {
         var contentSize = super.intrinsicContentSize
         contentSize.height += topInset + bottomInset
         contentSize.width += leftInset + rightInset
         return contentSize
      }
   }
}