Question

I have looked around and have been unsuccessful at figuring out how take text, overlay it on an image, and then combine the two into a single UIImage.

I have exhausted Google using the search terms I can think of so if anyone has a solution or at least a hint they can point to it would be greatly appreciated.

Answer

I figured it out:

func textToImage(drawText: NSString, inImage: UIImage, atPoint: CGPoint) -> UIImage{
    
    // Setup the font specific variables
    var textColor = UIColor.whiteColor()
    var textFont = UIFont(name: "Helvetica Bold", size: 12)!

    // Setup the image context using the passed image
    let scale = UIScreen.mainScreen().scale
    UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(inImage.size, false, scale)
    
    // Setup the font attributes that will be later used to dictate how the text should be drawn
    let textFontAttributes = [
        NSFontAttributeName: textFont,
        NSForegroundColorAttributeName: textColor,
    ]
    
    // Put the image into a rectangle as large as the original image
    inImage.drawInRect(CGRectMake(0, 0, inImage.size.width, inImage.size.height))

    // Create a point within the space that is as bit as the image
    var rect = CGRectMake(atPoint.x, atPoint.y, inImage.size.width, inImage.size.height)

    // Draw the text into an image
    drawText.drawInRect(rect, withAttributes: textFontAttributes)
    
    // Create a new image out of the images we have created
    var newImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext()
    
    // End the context now that we have the image we need
    UIGraphicsEndImageContext()
    
    //Pass the image back up to the caller
    return newImage
    
}

To call it, you just pass in an image:

textToImage("000", inImage: UIImage(named:"thisImage.png")!, atPoint: CGPointMake(20, 20))

The following links helped me get this straight:

[Swift - Drawing text with drawInRect:withAttributes:](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26201844/swift- drawing-text-with-drawinrectwithattributes)

[How to write text on image in Objective-C (iOS)?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6992830/how-to-write-text-on- image-in-objective-c-iphone)

The original goal was to create a dynamic image that I could use in an AnnotaionView such as putting a price at a given location on a map and this worked out great for it.

For Swift 3:

 func textToImage(drawText text: NSString, inImage image: UIImage, atPoint point: CGPoint) -> UIImage {
    let textColor = UIColor.white
    let textFont = UIFont(name: "Helvetica Bold", size: 12)!

    let scale = UIScreen.main.scale
    UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(image.size, false, scale)

    let textFontAttributes = [
        NSFontAttributeName: textFont,
        NSForegroundColorAttributeName: textColor,
        ] as [String : Any]
    image.draw(in: CGRect(origin: CGPoint.zero, size: image.size))

    let rect = CGRect(origin: point, size: image.size)
    text.draw(in: rect, withAttributes: textFontAttributes)

    let newImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext()
    UIGraphicsEndImageContext()

    return newImage!
 }

For Swift 4:

 func textToImage(drawText text: String, inImage image: UIImage, atPoint point: CGPoint) -> UIImage {
    let textColor = UIColor.white
    let textFont = UIFont(name: "Helvetica Bold", size: 12)!

    let scale = UIScreen.main.scale
    UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(image.size, false, scale)

    let textFontAttributes = [
        NSAttributedStringKey.font: textFont,
        NSAttributedStringKey.foregroundColor: textColor,
        ] as [NSAttributedStringKey : Any]
    image.draw(in: CGRect(origin: CGPoint.zero, size: image.size))

    let rect = CGRect(origin: point, size: image.size)
    text.draw(in: rect, withAttributes: textFontAttributes)

    let newImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext()
    UIGraphicsEndImageContext()

    return newImage!
 }

For Swift 5:

func textToImage(drawText text: String, inImage image: UIImage, atPoint point: CGPoint) -> UIImage {
    let textColor = UIColor.white
    let textFont = UIFont(name: "Helvetica Bold", size: 12)!

    let scale = UIScreen.main.scale
    UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(image.size, false, scale)

    let textFontAttributes = [
        NSAttributedString.Key.font: textFont,
        NSAttributedString.Key.foregroundColor: textColor,
        ] as [NSAttributedString.Key : Any]
    image.draw(in: CGRect(origin: CGPoint.zero, size: image.size))

    let rect = CGRect(origin: point, size: image.size)
    text.draw(in: rect, withAttributes: textFontAttributes)

    let newImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext()
    UIGraphicsEndImageContext()

    return newImage!
}