CODEWITHSUNDEEP
iosios7fontsios8uiwebview
Thomas Tempelmann
Thomas Tempelmann

Reputation: 12079

How to get the UIWebView's equivalent of the iOS 8 system font?

I am trying to use the very same font in a UIWebView on iOS that the iOS system uses currently.

This means I want to use the very same font I'd get from:

UIFontDescriptor *fd;
fd = [UIFontDescriptor preferredFontDescriptorWithTextStyle:UIFontTextStyleBody];
UIFont *font = [UIFont fontWithDescriptor:fd size:0];

There are lots of answers on SO (iPhone Development - Setting UIWebView font, Using custom font in a UIWebView, How to change UIWebView default font, How to set custom font in UIWebView?) that explain how to embed a UIFont's familyName or fontName into an html's style attributes, by doing this:

NSString *fontStyle, *htmlString = @"test";
fontStyle = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"font-family:%@;font-size:%d", font.familyName, (int)font.pointSize];
htmlString = NSString stringWithFormat:@"<span style=\"%@\">%@</span>", fontStyle, htmlString];

But this doesn't seem to work on iOS 7 and 8 any more where these system font names are now like:

font.fontName: .HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular
font.familyName: .Helvetica Neue Interface

When using these names in an UIWebView with the "font-family" attribute, the text gets rendered in the default font (which is with serifs and certainly not the new iOS system font). Removing the leading period doesn't help, either.

So, how do I now translate the system's font into a name that gets correctly interpreted by the Web Kit?

Please understand that I am seeking for a generic solution and do not simply seek the iOS 7/8 name I can insert manually into the html style attribute.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1102

Answers (2)

Thomas Tempelmann
Thomas Tempelmann

Reputation: 12079

I just ran into this blog article which may offer the solution though I have not verified it yet:

If you're trying to reference the system font in web views just prepend -apple-system to your font-family list and it'll use SF in iOS 9 and Helvetica in older versions.

Which means that the font line of above code needs to be change to:

fontStyle = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"font-family:-apple-system,Helvetica Neue;font-size:%d", (int)font.pointSize];

That should take care of selecting the system font from iOS 7 onward.

Upvotes: 3

do it better
do it better

Reputation: 4807

Have you tried Helvetica or San Francisco with attaching font files?

Upvotes: 0

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