Setting a letter spacing for a Label in Android and iOS turned into an interesting research for me. I would expect that such a common task would be easily done with a help of a Renderer or an Effect. However, I was very surprised to discover that some platforms do not have a built-in support for setting letter spacing.
Android
It turned out that setting letter spacing it is not possible on pre Lollipop (< 21) without hacks when on Lollipop+ there is a dedicated method: setLetterSpacing(). Luckily this SO post offered a creative solution:
.. method adds a space between each letter of the String and with SpannedString changes the TextScaleX of the spaces, allowing positive and negative spacing ..
The math in this solution is a bit weird and should be adjusted according to your specific needs. Otherwise it is doing it’s job nicely.
Checking the Distribution dashboard, it seems that 15.3% of users are using KitKat or older and 84.7% are using Lollipop or newer Android version. So hopefully very soon this recipe could be simplified🤞.
iOS
On iOS it is (as expected) a one-liner using attributedText property.
The recipe
I combined the details described above into Effect:
| using System.Linq; | |
| using System.Text; | |
| using Android.Text; | |
| using Android.Text.Style; | |
| using Android.Widget; | |
| using MyNamespace.Effects; | |
| using Xamarin.Forms; | |
| using Xamarin.Forms.Platform.Android; | |
| using static Android.Widget.TextView; | |
| [assembly: ResolutionGroupName("MyNamespace.Effects")] | |
| [assembly: ExportEffect(typeof(MyNamespace.Droid.Effects.LabelTextKerningEffect), nameof(LabelTextKerningEffect))] | |
| namespace MyNamespace.Droid.Effects | |
| { | |
| public class LabelTextKerningEffect : PlatformEffect | |
| { | |
| protected override void OnAttached() | |
| { | |
| var effect = (MyNamespace.Effects.LabelTextKerningEffect)Element.Effects.FirstOrDefault(e => e is MyNamespace.Effects.LabelTextKerningEffect); | |
| ApplySpacing(effect.Kerning); | |
| } | |
| protected override void OnDetached() { } | |
| void ApplySpacing(float letterSpacing) | |
| { | |
| var lbl = Control as TextView; | |
| if (lbl == null || string.IsNullOrEmpty(lbl.Text)) return; | |
| if (Build.VERSION.SdkInt >= BuildVersionCodes.Lollipop) | |
| { | |
| lbl.LetterSpacing = letterSpacing; | |
| } | |
| else | |
| { | |
| var originalText = lbl.Text; | |
| var builder = new StringBuilder(); | |
| for (int i = 0; i < originalText.Length; i++) | |
| { | |
| builder.Append(originalText[i]); | |
| if (i + 1 < originalText.Length) | |
| builder.Append("\u00A0"); // 'NO-BREAK SPACE' | |
| } | |
| var finalText = new SpannableString(builder.ToString()); | |
| if (builder.ToString().Length > 1) | |
| { | |
| for (int i = 1; i < builder.ToString().Length; i += 2) | |
| finalText.SetSpan(new ScaleXSpan(letterSpacing * 4), i, i + 1, SpanTypes.ExclusiveExclusive); | |
| } | |
| lbl.SetText(finalText, BufferType.Spannable); | |
| } | |
| } | |
| } | |
| } |
| using System.Linq; | |
| using MyNamespace.Effects; | |
| using Foundation; | |
| using UIKit; | |
| using Xamarin.Forms; | |
| using Xamarin.Forms.Platform.iOS; | |
| [assembly: ResolutionGroupName("MyNamespace.Effects")] | |
| [assembly: ExportEffect(typeof(MyNamespace.iOS.Effects.LabelTextKerningEffect), nameof(LabelTextKerningEffect))] | |
| namespace MyNamespace.iOS.Effects | |
| { | |
| public class LabelTextKerningEffect : PlatformEffect | |
| { | |
| protected override void OnAttached() | |
| { | |
| var effect = (MyNamespace.Effects.LabelTextKerningEffect)Element.Effects.FirstOrDefault(e => e is MyNamespace.Effects.LabelTextKerningEffect); | |
| ApplySpacing(effect.Kerning); | |
| } | |
| protected override void OnDetached() { } | |
| void ApplySpacing(float letterSpacing) | |
| { | |
| var lbl = Control as UILabel; | |
| if (lbl == null || string.IsNullOrEmpty(lbl.Text)) return; | |
| lbl.AttributedText = new NSAttributedString(lbl.Text, kerning: letterSpacing); | |
| } | |
| } | |
| } |
| <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> | |
| <ContentPage | |
| xmlns="http://xamarin.com/schemas/2014/forms" | |
| xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2009/xaml" | |
| xmlns:local="clr-namespace:XFLetterSpacing" | |
| xmlns:effects="clr-namespace:XFLetterSpacing.Effects" | |
| x:Class="XFLetterSpacing.MainPage"> | |
| <StackLayout> | |
| <!-- Place new controls here --> | |
| <Label Text="Welcome!" HorizontalOptions="Center" VerticalOptions="CenterAndExpand"> | |
| <Label.Effects> | |
| <effects:LabelTextLetterSpacingEffect Kerning="5" /> | |
| </Label.Effects> | |
| </Label> | |
| </StackLayout> | |
| </ContentPage> |
Evgeny Zborovsky 
Just to add some information: You can also add line spacing or underline your label.
Just change your code inside your effects to the following…
Android effect:
var formsLabel = Element as Label;
// Letter spacing
lbl.LetterSpacing = letterSpacing / (float) formsLabel.FontSize;
// By the way: You need to divide through the original font size of your forms label because Android is using em here instead of points.
// Line spacing
lbl.SetLineSpacing(0, lineSpacing); // available since API level 1
// Underline
lbl.PaintFlags = textView.PaintFlags | PaintFlags.UnderlineText; // not sure if works since API level 1
iOS effect:
var text = new NSMutableAttributedString(lbl.Text);
// Letter spacing
text.AddAttribute(UIStringAttributeKey.KerningAdjustment, new NSNumber(letterSpacing), new NSRange(0, text.Length));
// Line spacing
var paragraphStyle = new NSMutableParagraphStyle { LineSpacing = lineSpacing };
text.AddAttribute(UIStringAttributeKey.ParagraphStyle, paragraphStyle, new NSRange(0, text.Length));
// Underline
text.AddAttribute(UIStringAttributeKey.UnderlineStyle, new NSNumber((int) NSUnderlineStyle.Single), new NSRange(0, text.Length));
lbl.AttributedText = text;
LikeLike
Is it possible to give letter spacing for Entry?
LikeLike