iPhone UITextField - Change placeholder Font and Text Color

Question

I have a UITextField where i need to change the Placeholder Font and Color, i'm calling the below method in drawRect method,

-(void) setFontColorForPlaceHolder
{
    for(id obj in [[self baseScrollView] subviews])
    {
        if([obj isKindOfClass:[UITextField class]])
        {
            [obj setAttributedPlaceholder:[[NSAttributedString alloc]initWithString:[obj placeholder] attributes:@{
                NSFontAttributeName:kFutura_Medium_14 ,NSForegroundColorAttributeName:[UIColor redColor]
            }]];
        }
    }
}

Here the COLOR is changing but the FONT is not setting. What is the issue here with setAttributedPlaceholder.

There are lots of links available for this try this one http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18244790/changing-uitextfield-placeholder-font — Agent Chocks., Apr 26 '14 at 11:47
@MitsBhadeshiya : Yes absolutely you are right, its working fine in iOS7. So what to do in iOS6.? — Harish, Apr 26 '14 at 13:03
Why are you calling this code from `drawRect:`? That's not appropriate at all. — rmaddy, Apr 26 '14 at 15:38
Setting the placeholder of a `UITextField` subview isn't part of drawing a custom view. You should set the placeholder once when creating the custom view such as in its `init...` method. A custom view's `drawRect:` should only be used to draw the custom content (if any) of the view. If your custom view only has subview and no custom drawing, you shouldn't even implement the `drawRect:` method. — rmaddy, Apr 26 '14 at 16:55

score 6 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 23 '14 at 08:17

I was testing in iOS 7.1 and found out that NSFontAttributeName isn't doing anything to UITextField's placeholder text.

However, when I changed the font of the UITextField itself, the placeholder text font changed as well:

aUITextField.font = [UIFont fontWithName:@"HelveticaNeue-Thin" size:20.0f];

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 30 '14 at 06:51

For iOS 6+

[textField setValue:your_color forKeyPath:@"_placeholderLabel.textColor"];

To set a font for placeholder, just set a font for textfield before writing textholder.

textField.font = your font here;
[textField setValue:your_color forKeyPath:@"_placeholderLabel.textColor"];
textField.placeholder = "your placeholder string here...";

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Jun 22 '17 at 16:41

SWIFT 3 In your custom class override this:

override func placeholderRect(forBounds bounds: CGRect) -> CGRect {
     //set initial attributed placeholder color and font
     self.attributedPlaceholder = NSAttributedString(string:self.placeholder != nil ? self.placeholder! : "", attributes:[NSForegroundColorAttributeName: placeholderColor, NSFontAttributeName: placeholderTextFont])
     return bounds
}

iPhone UITextField - Change placeholder Font and Text Color

3 Answers3

For iOS 6+