If you don't want to use an extra parent view to set the background, you can subclass UILabel and override textRectForBounds:limitedToNumberOfLines:. I'd add a textEdgeInsets property or similar and then do
- (CGRect)textRectForBounds:(CGRect)bounds limitedToNumberOfLines:(NSInteger)numberOfLines
{
return [super textRectForBounds:UIEdgeInsetsInsetRect(bounds,textEdgeInsets) limitedToNumberOfLines:numberOfLines];
}
For robustness, you might also want to call [self setNeedsDisplay] in setTextEdgeInsets:, but I usually don't bother.
