title: Ligatures not do not work in UILabel/NSAttributedString in iOS 6
body: <p>I am trying to turn on ligatures <a href="https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/AttributedStrings/Articles/standardAttributes.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">(<code>NSLigatureAttributeName</code>)</a> for an <a href="https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Cocoa/Reference/Foundation/Classes/NSAttributedString_Class/Reference/Reference.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><code>NSAttributedString</code></a> displayed by a <code>UILabel</code>.</p>
  
  <p>I am targeting iOS 6.1 and running in the iPad simulator.</p>
  
  <p>My set of test words are:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>aeciospore</li>
  <li>coeliac</li>
  <li>halfheaded  </li>
  <li>cliffhanging </li>
  <li>aufkommender </li>
  <li>snuffkin</li>
  <li>domineesbriefjes  </li>
  <li>offtrack  </li>
  <li>dahinraffte</li>
  <li>coffins</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>My <a href="https://gist.github.com/rjstelling/5501524" rel="nofollow noreferrer">test code</a> is simple, it loops through the list of words and display one in a <code>UILabel</code> using the <code>text</code> property:</p>
  
  <pre><code>self.normalLabel.text = words[i];
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>And the other using the <code>attributedText</code> property, after creating an <code>NSAttributedString</code> (see <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/a/16358724/89035">Brandon Campbell's</a> answer for more info on the value of <code>NSLigatureAttributeName</code>):</p>
  
  <pre><code>NSDictionary *attrs = @{    NSFontAttributeName : [UIFont systemFontOfSize:74.0],
                              NSLigatureAttributeName : @1, //@2 not supported in iOS
                              NSBackgroundColorAttributeName : [UIColor redColor]};
  
  self.attr.attributedText = [[NSAttributedString alloc] initWithString:words[i] attributes:attrs];
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>As you can see I'm setting <code>NSLigatureAttributeName</code> to 2 (as an <code>NSNumber</code>). But this has no effect on the words:</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/FqmvX.png" alt="Ligatures do not working in UILabel using Attributed Strings"></p>
  
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/S2cEl.png" alt="Ligatures do not working in UILabel using Attributed Strings"></p>
  
  <p>I'm using the <code>systemFont</code> (Helvetica Neue), here is a debugger output:</p>
  
  <pre><code>(lldb) po self.attr.attributedText
  $0 = 0x0719bc90 aeciospore{
      NSBackgroundColor = "UIDeviceRGBColorSpace 1 0 0 1";
      NSFont = "&lt;UICFFont: 0x719cc80&gt; font-family: \".Helvetica NeueUI\"; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-size: 74px";
      NSLigature = 1;
  }
  (lldb) 
  </code></pre>