How to draw border around a UILabel? - ios

Question

Is there a way for UILabel to draw a border around itself? This is useful for me to debug the text placement and to see the placement and how big the label actually is.

Answer 1

You can set label's border via its underlying CALayer property:
#import <QuartzCore/QuartzCore.h>
myLabel.layer.borderColor = [UIColor greenColor].CGColor
myLabel.layer.borderWidth = 3.0
Swift 5:
myLabel.layer.borderColor = UIColor.darkGray.cgColor
myLabel.layer.borderWidth = 3.0

Answer 2

Here are some things you can do with UILabel and its borders.
Here is the code for those labels:
import UIKit
class ViewController: UIViewController {
#IBOutlet weak var label1: UILabel!
#IBOutlet weak var label2: UILabel!
#IBOutlet weak var label3: UILabel!
#IBOutlet weak var label4: UILabel!
#IBOutlet weak var label5: UILabel!
#IBOutlet weak var label6: UILabel!
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
// label 1
label1.layer.borderWidth = 1.0
// label 2
label2.layer.borderWidth = 5.0
label2.layer.borderColor = UIColor.blue.cgColor
// label 3
label3.layer.borderWidth = 2.0
label3.layer.cornerRadius = 8
// label 4
label4.backgroundColor = UIColor.cyan
// label 5
label5.backgroundColor = UIColor.red
label5.layer.cornerRadius = 8
label5.layer.masksToBounds = true
// label 6
label6.layer.borderWidth = 2.0
label6.layer.cornerRadius = 8
label6.backgroundColor = UIColor.yellow
label6.layer.masksToBounds = true
}
}
Note that in Swift there is no need to import QuartzCore.
See also
Border, rounded corners, and shadow on a CALayer
Explanation of masksToBounds
Using a border with a Bezier path for a layer
How to do transforms on a CALayer

Answer 3

Swift version:
myLabel.layer.borderWidth = 0.5
myLabel.layer.borderColor = UIColor.greenColor().CGColor
For Swift 3:
myLabel.layer.borderWidth = 0.5
myLabel.layer.borderColor = UIColor.green.cgColor

Answer 4

Swift 3/4 with #IBDesignable
While almost all the above solutions work fine but I would suggest an #IBDesignable custom class for this.
#IBDesignable
class CustomLabel: UILabel {
/*
// Only override draw() if you perform custom drawing.
// An empty implementation adversely affects performance during animation.
override func draw(_ rect: CGRect) {
// Drawing code
}
*/
#IBInspectable var borderColor: UIColor = UIColor.white {
didSet {
layer.borderColor = borderColor.cgColor
}
}
#IBInspectable var borderWidth: CGFloat = 2.0 {
didSet {
layer.borderWidth = borderWidth
}
}
#IBInspectable var cornerRadius: CGFloat = 0.0 {
didSet {
layer.cornerRadius = cornerRadius
}
}
}

Answer 5

UILabel properties borderColor,borderWidth,cornerRadius in Swift 4
#IBOutlet weak var anyLabel: UILabel!
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
anyLabel.layer.borderColor = UIColor.black.cgColor
anyLabel.layer.borderWidth = 2
anyLabel.layer.cornerRadius = 5
anyLabel.layer.masksToBounds = true
}

Answer 6

You can use this repo: GSBorderLabel
It's quite simple:
GSBorderLabel *myLabel = [[GSBorderLabel alloc] initWithTextColor:aColor
andBorderColor:anotherColor
andBorderWidth:2];

Answer 7

Solution for Swift 4:
yourLabel.layer.borderColor = UIColor.green.cgColor

Answer 8

it really depends on how many boarder use in your view , sometimes , just add a UIVIEW which the size is a bit bigger to create the border . the method is faster than produce a view

Answer 9

Using an NSAttributedString string for your labels attributedText is probably your best bet. Check out this example.