superscript characters in string IOS

Question

My app in xcode has a tableview with some product data. One of my products have a superscript e in its name. How can I use superscript characters in a string like: text^e

I can get it to work with numbers: text\u2070 -> text⁰ or text\u2071 -> text¹. But how to do this with other characters?

thx!

Answer 1

tl;dr: NSString does not support concept of super/sub script. That's more or less a UI formatting concern.

One possible solution is to dynically add UILabels in code instead of interface builder. You can add a second UILabel with a smaller font size.

Answer 2

Add CoreText framework, import CoreText.h, and use UIlabel.attributedText - it has full support for NSAttributedString. Asked and answered repeatedly on SO already.

Answer 3

For SubScript use value for kCTSuperscriptAttributeName as @-1.

As per the document

@discussion Value must be a CFNumberRef. Default is int value 0. If supported by the specified font, a value of 1 enables superscripting and a value of -1 enables subscripting.

extern const CFStringRef kCTSuperscriptAttributeName CT_AVAILABLE(10_5, 3_2);

Example- [lblHeader setText:@“Headers [Alpha1 – text”];

        NSMutableAttributedString *headerSubscript = [[NSMutableAttributedString alloc]initWithAttributedString: lblHeader.attributedText];

        [headerSubscript addAttribute:(NSString *)kCTSuperscriptAttributeName value:@-1 range:NSMakeRange(14,1)];      

        [lblHeader setAttributedText:headerSubscript];