How to add padding-left on a UIButton created programmatically?

Question

I am having a trouble adding left padding on a UIButton. I have a UIButton with UIControlContentHorizontalAlignmentLeft. I want the text to be displayed on the left side but it is too left. when I give the border, it doesn't look good. I would like to give some padding on the text about 5px like in CSS. I googled for the solution but can't find one particularly for UIButton. Thanks in advance for help.

Answer 1

titleEdgeInsets The inset or outset margins for the edges of the button title drawing rectangle.

@property(nonatomic) UIEdgeInsets titleEdgeInsets

Discussion Use this property to resize and reposition the effective drawing rectangle for the button title. You can specify a different value for each of the four insets (top, left, bottom, right). A positive value shrinks, or insets, that edge—moving it closer to the center of the button. A negative value expands, or outsets, that edge. Use the UIEdgeInsetsMake function to construct a value for this property. The default value is UIEdgeInsetsZero.

Availability Available in iOS 2.0 and later.

Declared In UIButton.h

Give this a try :)

[myButton setTitleEdgeInsets:UIEdgeInsetsMake(0.0, 5.0, 0.0, 0.0)];

Also if you're using a custom button there is such a thing as Content Insets and Image Insets.

Incase you've made it here looking for Swift. This is valid Swift 3.0 😃

myButton.titleEdgeInsets = UIEdgeInsets(top: 0.0, left: 5.0, bottom: 0.0, right: 0.0)

You can set it directly as well. It is helpful if want to use one or two properties.

myButton.titleEdgeInsets.top = 0
myButton.titleEdgeInsets.left = 5
myButton.titleEdgeInsets.bottom = 0
myButton.titleEdgeInsets.right = 0

Answer 2

Post Xcode 8 if you want to set it these insets through interface builder (IB),you will find these inset settings in size inspector instead of attribute inspector.

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

Here is a better answer to:

• avoid truncating the button title
• avoid title from extending beyond the button's view
• make the button frame work well with an image.

Code:

extension UIButton {
    func addLeftPadding(_ padding: CGFloat) {
        titleEdgeInsets = UIEdgeInsets(top: 0.0, left: padding, bottom: 0.0, right: -padding)
        contentEdgeInsets = UIEdgeInsets(top: 0.0, left: 0.0, bottom: 0.0, right: padding)
    }
}

Usage:

myButton.addLeftPadding(10)

Answer 4

In Xcode 6 you can specify title inset in IB: