Parsing HTML into NSAttributedText - how to set font?

Question

I am trying to get a snippet of text that is formatted in html to display nicely on an iPhone in a UITableViewCell.

So far I have this:

NSError* error;
NSString* source = @"<strong>Nice</strong> try, Phil";
NSMutableAttributedString* str = [[NSMutableAttributedString alloc] initWithData:[source dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]
                                                           options:@{NSDocumentTypeDocumentAttribute: NSHTMLTextDocumentType,
                                                                     NSCharacterEncodingDocumentAttribute: [NSNumber numberWithInt:NSUTF8StringEncoding]}
                                                              documentAttributes:nil error:&error];

This kind of works. I get some text that has 'Nice' in bold! But... it also sets the font to be Times Roman! This is not the font face I want. I am thinking I need to set something in the documentAttributes, but, I can't find any examples anywhere.

Answer 1

Swift 2 version, based on the answer given by Javier Querol

extension UILabel {
    func setHTMLFromString(text: String) {
        let modifiedFont = NSString(format:"<span style=\"font-family: \(self.font!.fontName); font-size: \(self.font!.pointSize)\">%@</span>", text) as String

        let attrStr = try! NSAttributedString(
            data: modifiedFont.dataUsingEncoding(NSUnicodeStringEncoding, allowLossyConversion: true)!,
            options: [NSDocumentTypeDocumentAttribute: NSHTMLTextDocumentType, NSCharacterEncodingDocumentAttribute: NSUTF8StringEncoding],
            documentAttributes: nil)

        self.attributedText = attrStr
    }
}

Swift 3.0 and iOS 9+

extension UILabel {
    func setHTMLFromString(htmlText: String) {
        let modifiedFont = String(format:"<span style=\"font-family: '-apple-system', 'HelveticaNeue'; font-size: \(self.font!.pointSize)\">%@</span>", htmlText)

        let attrStr = try! NSAttributedString(
            data: modifiedFont.data(using: .unicode, allowLossyConversion: true)!,
            options: [NSDocumentTypeDocumentAttribute: NSHTMLTextDocumentType, NSCharacterEncodingDocumentAttribute: String.Encoding.utf8.rawValue],
            documentAttributes: nil)

        self.attributedText = attrStr
    }
}

Swift 5 and iOS 11+

extension UILabel {
    func setHTMLFromString(htmlText: String) {
        let modifiedFont = String(format:"<span style=\"font-family: '-apple-system', 'HelveticaNeue'; font-size: \(self.font!.pointSize)\">%@</span>", htmlText)

        let attrStr = try! NSAttributedString(
            data: modifiedFont.data(using: .unicode, allowLossyConversion: true)!,
            options: [.documentType: NSAttributedString.DocumentType.html, .characterEncoding:String.Encoding.utf8.rawValue],
            documentAttributes: nil)

        self.attributedText = attrStr
    }
}