How to center the section headers of a UITableView

Question

this should solve your issue. Tested in xcode 6 / ios8

- (NSString *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView titleForHeaderInSection:(NSInteger)section {
    [[UILabel appearanceWhenContainedIn:[UITableViewHeaderFooterView class], nil] setTextAlignment:NSTextAlignmentCenter];
    return [sectionTitles objectAtIndex:section];
}

You must also implement tableView:heightForHeaderInSection to adjust your header height :

In the UITableViewDelegate Protocol Reference doc you find :

tableView:viewForHeaderInSection:

Discussion

The returned object, for example, can be a UILabel or UIImageView object. The table view automatically adjusts the height of the section header to accommodate the returned view object. This method only works correctly when tableView:heightForHeaderInSection: is also implemented.

For centering the Header label you must specify the label frame before setting its aligment to center. For getting the standart font, use SystemFontOfSize:

Also beware you are creating a memory leak you are supposed to return an autoreleased view

Try something like this :

UILabel *lbl = [[[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, self.view.frame.size.width, 30)] autorelease];
lbl.textAlignment = UITextAlignmentCenter;
lbl.font = [UIFont systemFontOfSize:12];

Hope this helps, Vincent

Volker's answer in Swift:

If you target iOS6 and later you don't have to provide your own header view if you just want to center the header title.

Just implement

- tableView:willDisplayHeaderView:forSection:

and set the textAligment property of the label:

func tableView(tableView: UITableView, willDisplayHeaderView view: UIView, forSection section: Int) {
    if let headerView = view as? UITableViewHeaderFooterView {
        headerView.textLabel?.textAlignment = .Center
    }
}

If you target iOS6 and later you don't have to provide your own header view if you just want to center the header title.

Just implement

- tableView:willDisplayHeaderView:forSection:

and set the textAligment property of the label:

- (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView willDisplayHeaderView:(UIView *)view forSection:(NSInteger)section
{
    if([view isKindOfClass:[UITableViewHeaderFooterView class]]){

        UITableViewHeaderFooterView *tableViewHeaderFooterView = (UITableViewHeaderFooterView *) view;
        tableViewHeaderFooterView.textLabel.textAlignment = NSTextAlignmentCenter;
    }
}