Text `lineHeight` is honoured on web but not on React Native — multi-line text lays out ~5% taller on iOS

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Summary

A Text with an explicitly authored lineHeight of 40 (font size 32) lays out at 40px per line in @rive-app/canvas, and at 42px per line in @rive-app/react-native on iOS — from the same .riv file, same text style, same font asset.

The authored value is read and applied on RN — a second test at lineHeight 60 confirms it changes the layout — but the applied pitch is larger than authored. The divergence at 40 is a clean 1.0500 ratio, measured, not estimated.

This breaks any layout that positions content by arithmetic on line height — for us, an odometer-style digit register that translates an 11-line strip to bring one digit into a clipping window.

Environment

RN runtime	@rive-app/react-native 0.4.19 (Nitro)
	react-native-nitro-modules 0.35.10
	RiveRuntime 6.21.1
Web runtime	@rive-app/canvas 2.39.2
Device	iOS Simulator, iPhone 17 Pro
Editor	Rive Desktop, beta 0.8.5581

Authored values

On the TextStylePaint (property keys as reported by the editor's MCP surface):

property	key	value
fontsize	274	32.0
lineheight	370	40.0
letterspacing	390	0.96
fontassetid	279	an embedded font asset (not a system font; iscustomfont = false)

On the Text node: sizingvalue = autoWidth, paragraphspacing = 0, verticaltrim = none, fitfrombaseline = true.

The text content is 11 lines: one blank line followed by 0–9. Its container is a fixed 20 x 440 box — 440 = 11 x 40, i.e. sized on the assumption that the authored line height is respected.

Expected

11 lines at lineHeight 40 occupy 440px on every runtime.

Actual

• Web: 440px. Correct.
• RN / iOS: ~462px, i.e. 42px per line.

Evidence

The strip is translated by -((d + 1) * 40) to bring digit d into a 40px clipping window. If the true pitch is 42 rather than 40, each digit lands low by (d + 1) * 40 * 0.05 — an error that grows linearly with the digit value.

Measured glyph tops from a device screenshot (xcrun simctl io … screenshot, luma threshold, 3x scale), same numeric value in two registers, one with a workaround applied and one without:

value 1907, digits 1 / 9 / 0 / 7

unmodified (control)   glyph tops  796, 835, 790, 830   spread 45px
workaround applied     glyph tops  790, 792, 790, 796   spread  6px
web reference          spread equivalent to ~15px at the same scale
                       (natural round-vs-flat glyph variation; this is the floor)

The control's 45px spread matches the linear-error prediction; the workaround's 6px sits below the glyph-shape floor measured on the known-good web render.

Solving for the pitch ratio from the digit-4-vs-digit-0 gap (24px at 3x = 8 layout units, against a predicted 160(k−1)):

160(k − 1) = 8   ->   k = 1.0500   ->   rendered pitch = 42.00px

The same model predicts every value we rendered:

value	predicted per-digit error (units)	observed
404	4:10, 0:2, 4:10	0 appears raised, 4s flush
7890	7:16, 8:18, 9:20, 0:2	7/8/9 badly low, 0 fine
2607	2:6, 6:14, 0:2, 7:16	6 and 7 low, 2 and 0 near-flush
1005	1:4, 0:2, 0:2, 5:12	"100" flush, 5 low

Second data point — lineHeight IS honoured, just not at the authored value

We re-ran with the authored lineHeight changed from 40 to 60 on a single strip, leaving the others untouched as controls, and rendered a value whose leading wheel shows digit 1.

Predicted displacement of that digit for each candidate mechanism (the strip is translated by -(d+1) * 40, so the error is (d+1) * (P - 40)):

candidate	rendered pitch P	digit-1 displacement
lineHeight ignored, font advance used	42	+4 units — digit stays centred in the 40-unit window
additive, L + 2	62	+44 units — digit leaves the window
multiplicative, L x 1.05	63	+46 units — digit leaves the window

Observed: the digit was scrolled fully out of the window — only the edge of a neighbouring glyph remained visible, while the untouched control wheels stayed flush.

That rules out the font-fallback explanation. lineHeight is read and applied; the applied value is simply larger than authored — approximately 42 for an authored 40, and approximately 62–63 for an authored 60.

We could not separate additive (+2) from multiplicative (x1.05): they differ by ~6px at 3x, and at lineHeight 60 the glyph is already outside the clipping window, so there is no in-window measurement that distinguishes them. Both are consistent with every observation. We expect this is immediately obvious from your text-layout source.

Minimal repro

1. A Text with 11 lines, font size 32, lineHeight 40, inside a fixed 20 x 440 container.
2. Render the same .riv in @rive-app/canvas and in @rive-app/react-native 0.4.19 on iOS.
3. Measure the vertical distance between the first and last line's baselines. Web gives 400 (10 x 40); RN gives ~420.

Alternatively, translate the strip by -40 * n and observe that the n-th line is not centred in a 40px window on RN, with the offset growing with n.

Workaround (for anyone hitting this)

Force the renderer to fit the text into a known box rather than relying on the authored line height:

sizingvalue    autoWidth -> fixed
width                    -> <container width>
height                   -> <lines * intended lineHeight>
overflowvalue  visible   -> fit

With overflow: fit, both runtimes scale the block into the fixed height, so the per-line pitch becomes correct by construction. On RN the glyphs render ~5% smaller as a result, which was an acceptable trade for us. Verified: web unchanged, RN corrected to within glyph-shape noise.

Why it matters beyond our case

lineHeight being platform-dependent silently breaks any design that does arithmetic on it — digit reels, tickers, virtualised lists, anything positioned by line index. There is no error and no warning; the content renders, just in the wrong place, and the error is proportional so small cases look fine and large ones look broken. It took us a full session to localise because every automated check we had asserts view-model values rather than rendered geometry.