Changing Font Size For UITableView Section Headers

Another way to do this would be to respond to the UITableViewDelegate method willDisplayHeaderView. The passed view is actually an instance of a UITableViewHeaderFooterView.

The example below changes the font, and also centers the title text vertically and horizontally within the cell. Note that you should also respond to heightForHeaderInSection to have any changes to your header's height accounted for in the layout of the table view. (That is, if you decide to change the header height in this willDisplayHeaderView method.)

You could then respond to the titleForHeaderInSection method to reuse this configured header with different section titles.

Objective-C

- (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView willDisplayHeaderView:(UIView *)view forSection:(NSInteger)section {
    UITableViewHeaderFooterView *header = (UITableViewHeaderFooterView *)view;

    header.textLabel.textColor = [UIColor redColor];
    header.textLabel.font = [UIFont boldSystemFontOfSize:18];
    CGRect headerFrame = header.frame;
    header.textLabel.frame = headerFrame;
    header.textLabel.textAlignment = NSTextAlignmentCenter;
}

Swift 1.2

(Note: if your view controller is a descendant of a UITableViewController, this would need to be declared as override func.)

override func tableView(tableView: UITableView, willDisplayHeaderView view: UIView, forSection section: Int) 
{
    let header:UITableViewHeaderFooterView = view as! UITableViewHeaderFooterView

    header.textLabel.textColor = UIColor.redColor()
    header.textLabel.font = UIFont.boldSystemFontOfSize(18)
    header.textLabel.frame = header.frame
    header.textLabel.textAlignment = NSTextAlignment.Center
}

Swift 3.0

This code also ensures that the app doesn't crash if your header view is something other than a UITableViewHeaderFooterView:

override func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, willDisplayHeaderView view: UIView, forSection section: Int) {
    guard let header = view as? UITableViewHeaderFooterView else { return }
    header.textLabel?.textColor = UIColor.red
    header.textLabel?.font = UIFont.boldSystemFont(ofSize: 18)
    header.textLabel?.frame = header.bounds
    header.textLabel?.textAlignment = .center
}

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Unfortunately, you may have to override this:

In Objective-C:

- (UIView *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView viewForHeaderInSection:(NSInteger)section

In Swift:

func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, viewForHeaderInSection section: Int) -> UIView?

Try something like this:

In Objective-C:

- (UIView *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView viewForHeaderInSection:(NSInteger)section {

    UILabel *myLabel = [[UILabel alloc] init];
    myLabel.frame = CGRectMake(20, 8, 320, 20);
    myLabel.font = [UIFont boldSystemFontOfSize:18];
    myLabel.text = [self tableView:tableView titleForHeaderInSection:section];

    UIView *headerView = [[UIView alloc] init];
    [headerView addSubview:myLabel];

    return headerView;
}

In Swift:

func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, viewForHeaderInSection section: Int) -> UIView? {

    let myLabel = UILabel()
    myLabel.frame = CGRect(x: 20, y: 8, width: 320, height: 20)
    myLabel.font = UIFont.boldSystemFont(ofSize: 18)
    myLabel.text = self.tableView(tableView, titleForHeaderInSection: section)

    let headerView = UIView()
    headerView.addSubview(myLabel)

    return headerView
}

---

While mosca1337's answer is a correct solution, be careful with that method. For a header with text longer than one line, you will have to perform the calculations of the height of the header in tableView:heightForHeaderInSection: which can be cumbersome.

A much preferred method is to use the appearance API:

[[UILabel appearanceWhenContainedIn:[UITableViewHeaderFooterView class], nil] setFont:[UIFont boldSystemFontOfSize:28]];

This will change the font, while still leaving the table to manage the heights itself.

For optimal results, subclass the table view, and add it to the containment chain (in appearanceWhenContainedIn:) to make sure the font is only changed for the specific table views.

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For iOS 7 I use this,

-(void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView willDisplayHeaderView:(UIView *)view forSection:(NSInteger)section
{
    UITableViewHeaderFooterView *header = (UITableViewHeaderFooterView *)view;

    header.textLabel.font = [UIFont boldSystemFontOfSize:10.0f];
    header.textLabel.textColor = [UIColor orangeColor];
}

Here is Swift 3.0 version with header resizing

override func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, willDisplayHeaderView view: UIView, forSection section: Int) {
    if let header = view as? UITableViewHeaderFooterView {
        header.textLabel!.font = UIFont.systemFont(ofSize: 24.0)
        header.textLabel!.textColor = UIColor.orange          
    }
}

---

Swift 3:

Simplest way to adjust only size:

func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, willDisplayHeaderView view: UIView, forSection section: Int) {

    let header = view as! UITableViewHeaderFooterView

    if let textlabel = header.textLabel {
        textlabel.font = textlabel.font.withSize(15)
    }
}

---

Swift 2.0:

Replace default section header with fully customisable UILabel.

Implement viewForHeaderInSection, like so:

  override func tableView(tableView: UITableView, viewForHeaderInSection section: Int) -> UIView? {

    let sectionTitle: String = self.tableView(tableView, titleForHeaderInSection: section)!
    if sectionTitle == "" {
      return nil
    }

    let title: UILabel = UILabel()

    title.text = sectionTitle
    title.textColor = UIColor(red: 0.0, green: 0.54, blue: 0.0, alpha: 0.8)
    title.backgroundColor = UIColor.clearColor()
    title.font = UIFont.boldSystemFontOfSize(15)

    return title
  }

Alter the default header (retains default).

Implement willDisplayHeaderView, like so:

  override func tableView(tableView: UITableView, willDisplayHeaderView view: UIView, forSection section: Int) {

    if let view = view as? UITableViewHeaderFooterView {
      view.backgroundView?.backgroundColor = UIColor.blueColor()
      view.textLabel!.backgroundColor = UIColor.clearColor()
      view.textLabel!.textColor = UIColor.whiteColor()
      view.textLabel!.font = UIFont.boldSystemFontOfSize(15)
    }
  }

Remember: If you're using static cells, the first section header is padded higher than other section headers due to the top of the UITableView; to fix this:

Implement heightForHeaderInSection, like so:

  override func tableView(tableView: UITableView, heightForHeaderInSection section: Int) -> CGFloat {

    return 30.0 // Or whatever height you want!
  }

---

Here it is, You have to follow write a few methods here. #Swift 5

func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, willDisplayHeaderView view: UIView, forSection section: Int) {
    
    let header = view as? UITableViewHeaderFooterView
    header?.textLabel?.font = UIFont.init(name: "Montserrat-Regular", size: 14)
    header?.textLabel?.textColor = .greyishBrown
}

func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, heightForHeaderInSection section: Int) -> CGFloat {
    
    return 26
}

Have a good luck

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With this method you can set font size, font style and Header background also. there are have 2 method for this

First Method

- (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView willDisplayHeaderView:(UIView *)view forSection:(NSInteger)section{
        UITableViewHeaderFooterView *header = (UITableViewHeaderFooterView *)view;
        header.backgroundView.backgroundColor = [UIColor darkGrayColor];
        header.textLabel.font=[UIFont fontWithName:@"Open Sans-Regular" size:12];
        [header.textLabel setTextColor:[UIColor whiteColor]];
    }

Second Method

- (UIView *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView viewForHeaderInSection:(NSInteger)section{
    UILabel *myLabel = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, tableView.frame.size.width, 30)];
//    myLabel.frame = CGRectMake(20, 8, 320, 20);
    myLabel.font = [UIFont fontWithName:@"Open Sans-Regular" size:12];
    myLabel.text = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"   %@",[self tableView:FilterSearchTable titleForHeaderInSection:section]];

    myLabel.backgroundColor=[UIColor blueColor];
    myLabel.textColor=[UIColor whiteColor];
    UIView *headerView = [[UIView alloc] init];
    [headerView addSubview:myLabel];
    return headerView;
}

---

Swift 4 version of Leo Natan answer is

UILabel.appearance(whenContainedInInstancesOf: [UITableViewHeaderFooterView.self]).font = UIFont.boldSystemFont(ofSize: 28)

If you wanted to set a custom font you could use

if let font = UIFont(name: "font-name", size: 12) {
    UILabel.appearance(whenContainedInInstancesOf: [UITableViewHeaderFooterView.self]).font = font
}

---

Swift 2:

As OP asked, only adjust the size, not setting it as a system bold font or whatever:

func tableView(tableView: UITableView, willDisplayHeaderView view: UIView, forSection section: Int) {
        if let headerView = view as? UITableViewHeaderFooterView, textLabel = headerView.textLabel {

            let newSize = CGFloat(16)
            let fontName = textLabel.font.fontName
            textLabel.font = UIFont(name: fontName, size: newSize)
        }
    }

---

This is my solution with swift 5.

To fully control the header section view, you need to use the tableView(:viewForHeaderInsection::) method in your controller, as the previous post showed. However, there is a further step: to improve performance, apple recommend not generate a new view every time but to re-use the header view, just like reuse table cell. This is by method tableView.dequeueReusableHeaderFooterView(withIdentifier: ). But the problem I had is once you start to use this re-use function, the font won't function as expected. Other things like color, alignment all fine but just font. There are some discussions but I made it work like the following.

The problem is tableView.dequeueReusableHeaderFooterView(withIdentifier:) is not like tableView.dequeneReuseCell(:) which always returns a cell. The former will return a nil if no one available. Even if it returns a reuse header view, it is not your original class type, but a UITableHeaderFooterView. So you need to do the judgement and act according in your own code. Basically, if it is nil, get a brand new header view. If not nil, force to cast so you can control.

override func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, viewForHeaderInSection section: Int) -> UIView? {
        let reuse_header = tableView.dequeueReusableHeaderFooterView(withIdentifier: "yourHeaderID")
        if (reuse_header == nil) {
            let new_sec_header = YourTableHeaderViewClass(reuseIdentifier:"yourHeaderID")
            new_section_header.label.text="yourHeaderString"
            //do whatever to set color. alignment, etc to the label view property
            //note: the label property here should be your custom label view. Not the build-in labelView. This way you have total control.
            return new_section_header
        }
        else {
            let new_section_header = reuse_section_header as! yourTableHeaderViewClass
            new_sec_header.label.text="yourHeaderString"
            //do whatever color, alignment, etc to the label property
            return new_sec_header}

    }

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