How do I create a bold UIFont from a regular UIFont?

Question

If I have a UIFont object, is it possible to convert it to bold? I don\'t know the font name, I just have a UIFont object. What I want is a function like

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Answer 1

iOS 7 introduces a new UIFontDescriptor class, which makes it a lot easier:

UIFont *font = [UIFont fontWithName:@"Helvetica Neue" size:12];
NSLog(@"plain font: %@", font.fontName); // “HelveticaNeue”

UIFont *boldFont = [UIFont fontWithDescriptor:[[font fontDescriptor] fontDescriptorWithSymbolicTraits:UIFontDescriptorTraitBold] size:font.pointSize];
NSLog(@"bold version: %@", boldFont.fontName); // “HelveticaNeue-Bold”

UIFont *italicFont = [UIFont fontWithDescriptor:[[font fontDescriptor] fontDescriptorWithSymbolicTraits:UIFontDescriptorTraitItalic] size:font.pointSize];
NSLog(@"italic version: %@", italicFont.fontName); // “HelveticaNeue-Italic”

UIFont *boldItalicFont = [UIFont fontWithDescriptor:[[font fontDescriptor] fontDescriptorWithSymbolicTraits:UIFontDescriptorTraitBold | UIFontDescriptorTraitItalic] size:font.pointSize];
NSLog(@"bold & italic version: %@", boldItalicFont.fontName); // “HelveticaNeue-BoldItalic”

For people who got here looking for a Cocoa (macOS) equivalent, UIFontDescriptor comes from NSFontDescriptor, available since 10.3.