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How to layer views on top of each other using ZStack

Paul Hudson @twostraws September 3rd 2021

Updated for Xcode 13.0

SwiftUI has a dedicated stack type for creating overlapping content, which is useful if you want to place some text over a picture for example. It’s called ZStack, and it works identically to the other two stack types.

For example, we could place a large image underneath some text like this:

ZStack {
    Image("niagara-falls")
    Text("Hacking with Swift")
        .font(.largeTitle)
        .background(Color.black)
        .foregroundColor(.white)
}

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“Hacking with Swift” in white text on a black rectangle, centered over an image of Niagara Falls.

Like the other stack types, ZStack can be created with an alignment so that it doesn’t always center things inside itself:

ZStack(alignment: .leading) {
    Image("niagara-falls")
    Text("Hacking with Swift")
        .font(.largeTitle)
        .background(Color.black)
        .foregroundColor(.white)
}

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“Hacking with Swift” in white text on a black rectangle, touching the left edge of an image of Niagara Falls.

However, it doesn’t have a spacing property because it doesn’t make sense. Instead, you should use the offset() modifier as shown in How to adjust the position of a view using its offset.

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How to layer views on top of each other using ZStack

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