UITableView contentInset makes table view scroll horizontally in addition to vertically

Question

I'm creating a UITableViewController in code and pushing it on top of the navigation stack. It's table view is intended to just show a simple list of text items.

I need to add some contentInset to my table view which I add in the init method of my UITableViewController

self.tableView.contentInset = UIEdgeInsetsMake(7.0f, 5.0f, 7.0f, 5.0f);

However, when I load the table view it seems the left and right contentInset have actually stretched the width of my table view by 10. I'm now seeing a small horizontal scrollable area. I don't want any sort of horizontal scrolling on my table view. If I remove the contentInset code, my table view behaves plainly i.e. simply provides for vertical scrolling. How I can keep just like that but with my contentInset in place? I tried reducing my contentSize.width by 10 in viewWillAppear, it had no effect.

This seems to be a duplicate but with no acceptable answer: UITableView ContentInsets scrolling content horizontally

In the mock I have marked the desired contentInset with dashed line ---

Thanks.

Answer 1

I ended up setting just the top and bottom insets. To achieve the left and right inset look and feel, I created custom cell as wide as the screen. But the actual cell content was restricted to a slightly narrower subview within the custom cell. Thus, there was space leftover on the left and right of the subview.