Adding a line break to a UITextView

Question

I have a UITextView that takes an NSString with formatting stringWithUTF8String. It is getting its values from a database and I want the text in the database to be rendered with breaks within the text. I tried using \n to do this but it gets rendered as text. Doing this in my information page of the app as straight text worked but I think the reason its not working when taking it from the database is because of the formatting.

Any suggestions?

Sounds like your string has an actual "blackslash n" in it instead of a proper carriage return character. — Brad Robinson, Sep 13 '10 at 00:40
I've done both \n and \n\n and both get rendered as text. thanks though. Anybody else? — Mark Cicero, Sep 13 '10 at 00:43
Try when you make your have you tried something like this: `_label.text = @"Line 1\n" @"Line 2\n" @"Line 3";` — , Sep 13 '10 at 00:46
My turn. Take the NSString and replace all @"\\n" with @"\n". — No one in particular, Sep 13 '10 at 00:47
@thyrgle: the text is coming from a database and cannot be broke up into lines — Mark Cicero, Sep 13 '10 at 01:00
This isn't an "answer", but because of how the comments were becoming a thread... was maintaining some code, had this problem, and the underlying problem was that some fields were `UITextField` and some were `UITextView`... the *fields were the one that misbehaved. — benc, Apr 10 '23 at 20:02

score 101 · Answer 1 · edited Jul 02 '17 at 20:16

101

If you want to add newline in Xcode5 / Xcode6 storyboard Attribute-Inspector (AI), you do it this way:

Drag out a UITextView.
Double-click it to edit text, place cursor where you want the paragraph break.
Hit alt-Enter a couple of times to create a blank line & paragraph.

Or, CTRL + Return make a new line.

You can now see the effect into output / View-mode in storyboard. enter image description here

edited Jul 02 '17 at 20:16

bneely

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answered Mar 08 '15 at 15:15

imti

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Yes, indeed. What to do now? – Houman Jan 13 '18 at 19:32
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Use the text field in the attribute inspector instead of double tapping the field in storyboard, alt+Enter won't crash there. – Eph Bee Feb 14 '18 at 12:07
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control + return is the key – Preetam Jadakar Feb 25 '18 at 06:15
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This is not the answer to the question actually asked!! – PhilipS Apr 24 '19 at 19:30
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This worked for me:- remarkTextView.isEditable = true; remarkTextView.text = remarks; remarkTextView.isEditable = false; – dinesh sharma Jun 18 '20 at 09:54

score 39 · Answer 2 · edited Aug 04 '16 at 06:25

39

Expanding tc's answer a bit: when you have newlines in the string, you probably want to convert them to \n (that is, @"\\n" in Cocoa) then save to the database and, on getting the string BACK from the database, you probably want to convert those back to newlines. So you'd use code something like this:

NSString *saveString = [myTextField.text stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString: @"\n" withString: @"\\n"];
// save it to the db
// ... later ...
NSString *dbString = // get the string from the db.
myTextField.text = [dbString stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString: @"\\n" withString: @"\n"];

edited Aug 04 '16 at 06:25

sudo make install

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answered Sep 25 '10 at 01:47

Olie

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Tommecpe made a good point in an edit proposal - it is stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString - see https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Cocoa/Reference/Foundation/Classes/NSString_Class/Reference/NSString.html#//apple_ref/occ/instm/NSString/stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:withString: – Chris Stratton May 29 '13 at 17:19
I think this is smart way of cheating to get it odne – Fahim Parkar Oct 03 '13 at 06:24

score 26 · Answer 3 · edited Oct 17 '13 at 14:06

Simply the below:

{
textView.text = @"January: 7th,21st,\n February: 4th,18th,\n March: 4th,18th,\n April: 1st, 15th, 29th, \n May: 13th, 27th, \n June: 10th,24th, \n July: 8th, 22nd, \n August: 5th, 19th, \n September: 2nd, 16th, 30th, \n October: 14th, 28th, \n November: 11th, 25th";
        NSLog (@"Recycle Dates for Abbey Way");

}

will be out putted as below in your textView or whatever you choose

Output :

January: 7th, 21st,
February: 4th, 18th,
March: 4th, 18th etc etc

score 13 · Answer 4 · edited Mar 03 '16 at 13:34

13

In Swift, just add "\n" between two strings

Example:

let firstString = "Hello"

let secondString = "Senorita"

textview.text = firstString + "\n" + "secondString"

edited Mar 03 '16 at 13:34

Hardik Thakkar

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answered Oct 30 '15 at 05:04

Ravindra Kishan

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Worked fine for me. No need for \\n. – Septronic Dec 06 '15 at 13:35

score 7 · Answer 5 · edited Jul 02 '17 at 20:17

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I think, you should try using "\r".

I have tested it on Xcode 4.2.1, iOS 4.3

Edit: This also works in iOS 3.0 and iOS 5.1

edited Jul 02 '17 at 20:17

bneely

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answered Feb 27 '12 at 04:34

hellangle

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Did you try using \n instead? – Dan W Oct 15 '12 at 22:54

score 3 · Answer 6 · answered Oct 01 '15 at 02:28

3

when you get from db. try

NSString *content = [mytext stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"\\n" withString:@"\n"];
self.textView.text = content;

answered Oct 01 '15 at 02:28

Tuan Pham

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score 2 · Answer 7 · answered Mar 06 '13 at 13:33

A UITextView will take the newlines, but it will not work with cariage returns. You will have to make sure your input is correct.

I tried it in the IB editor, and had some troubles with it initially. Then I used a text editor, typed my text and then pasted it into the IB editor.

That did the trick, for me. Your source comes from a database, so I think probaly the newlines are actually newlines, but perhaphs carriage return's or other. Check the HEX string of your input.

Good answer. I copied over text from the text editor and the new lines showed up fine. — Bilbo Baggins, Sep 24 '13 at 21:25

score 1 · Answer 8 · edited Oct 28 '10 at 18:01

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Set the (UIKeyboardType)keyboardType and (UIReturnKeyTYpe) returnKeyType

if you are building in code.

If you are using IB then just go to the first inspector panel and set the TextInputTraits

edited Oct 28 '10 at 18:01

Brad Larson

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answered Sep 24 '10 at 09:44

Vivek Sharma

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score 1 · Answer 9 · answered Aug 02 '16 at 11:48

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if you are getting the text from web, make sure you put a space before and after the /n that solved my problem

as example (php):

echo $item_detail['item_title']."  \n ";

answered Aug 02 '16 at 11:48

Omar N Shamali

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score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Jul 08 '15 at 18:52

Expanding on Olie's answer... In Swift the code for updating the string from the database is:

let dbString = // get the string from the db.
myTextField.text = dbString.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("\\\\n", withString: "\n")

Took me a while to figure out, so thought I would share.

score 0 · Answer 11 · answered Aug 17 '20 at 17:12

0

Append a character("\n") in the string

var logs = "this is first Line" self.logs.append(Character("\n")) self.textView.text = self.logs

answered Aug 17 '20 at 17:12

Deepak Singh

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score -2 · Answer 12 · answered Sep 13 '10 at 01:40

-2

You're saving a literal "\n" in the database. Try saving a newline.

answered Sep 13 '10 at 01:40

tc.

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Adding a line break to a UITextView

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