Placing Hard Returns in a Windows Forms Label

Formatting the contents of a Label.Text

by Les Smith

How do I get hard returns in a Windows Label Control so that I can make the text in a Label appear as I want it to?  Using Multiple Labels is a real pain.

Many times I have wanted to format the contents of a multi-line label, so that I could have hard returns and indentations in the Label area without having to use multiple Label controls.  You can't do this at Design time and I used to create multiple Label controls to get the proper effect.

The simple solution is to add the text to the Label Control at run-time.  That way you can place the hard returns and extra spaces (for indentation) anywhere you want them, using only one Label control.  Check the following C# code:

label1.Text = "How to Format A Windows Forms Label, making it multi-Line: \n ";    label1.Text += "   *  This is indented line 1\n ";    label1.Text += "   *  This is indented line 2\n ";    label1.Text += "   *       A) This is indented line 3\n ";    label1.Text += "   *       B) This is indented line 4\n ";

You can continue this for as long as you like, making your single Label Control work like a Multi-line text box.

The same code in VB.NET is obviously almost identical.

label1.Text = "How to Format A Windows Label, making it multi-Line:" & vbCrLf    label1.Text += "   *  This is indented line 1 " & vbCrLf    label1.Text += "   *  This is indented line 2 " & vbCrLf    label1.Text += "   *       A) This is indented line 3 " & vbCrLf    label1.Text += "   *       B) This is indented line 4 " & vbCrLf

Sometimes problems in the designer can be solved easily at run-time.  This is not a rocket science article, but just a simple Tip or Trick.  Hope it helps one person out.