How do I locate the CGRect for a substring of text in a UILabel?

swift 4 solution, will work even for multiline strings, bounds were replaced with intrinsicContentSize

extension UILabel {
func boundingRectForCharacterRange(range: NSRange) -> CGRect? {

    guard let attributedText = attributedText else { return nil }

    let textStorage = NSTextStorage(attributedString: attributedText)
    let layoutManager = NSLayoutManager()

    textStorage.addLayoutManager(layoutManager)

    let textContainer = NSTextContainer(size: intrinsicContentSize)

    textContainer.lineFragmentPadding = 0.0

    layoutManager.addTextContainer(textContainer)

    var glyphRange = NSRange()

    layoutManager.characterRange(forGlyphRange: range, actualGlyphRange: &glyphRange)

    return layoutManager.boundingRect(forGlyphRange: glyphRange, in: textContainer)
}
}

My suggestion would be to make use of Text Kit. Unfortunately we don't have access to the layout manager that a UILabel uses however it might be possible to create a replica of it and use that to get the rect for a range.

My suggestion would be to create a NSTextStorage object containing the exact same attributed text as is in your label. Next create a NSLayoutManager and add that to the the text storage object. Finally create a NSTextContainer with the same size as the label and add that to the layout manager.

Now the text storage has the same text as the label and the text container is the same size as the label so we should be able to ask the layout manager we created for a rect for our range using boundingRectForGlyphRange:inTextContainer:. Make sure you convert your character range to a glyph range first using glyphRangeForCharacterRange:actualCharacterRange: on the layout manager object.

All going well that should give you a bounding CGRect of the range you specified within the label.

I haven't tested this but this would be my approach and by mimicking how the UILabel itself works should have a good chance of succeeding.

Building off of Luke Rogers's answer but written in swift:

Swift 2

extension UILabel {
    func boundingRectForCharacterRange(_ range: NSRange) -> CGRect? {

        guard let attributedText = attributedText else { return nil }

        let textStorage = NSTextStorage(attributedString: attributedText)
        let layoutManager = NSLayoutManager()

        textStorage.addLayoutManager(layoutManager)

        let textContainer = NSTextContainer(size: bounds.size)
        textContainer.lineFragmentPadding = 0.0

        layoutManager.addTextContainer(textContainer)

        var glyphRange = NSRange()

        // Convert the range for glyphs.
        layoutManager.characterRangeForGlyphRange(range, actualGlyphRange: &glyphRange)

        return layoutManager.boundingRectForGlyphRange(glyphRange, inTextContainer: textContainer)        
    }
}

Example Usage (Swift 2)

let label = UILabel()
let text = "aa bb cc"
label.attributedText = NSAttributedString(string: text)
let sublayer = CALayer()
sublayer.borderWidth = 1
sublayer.frame = label.boundingRectForCharacterRange(NSRange(text.range(of: "bb")!, in: text))
label.layer.addSublayer(sublayer)

Swift 3/4

extension UILabel {
    func boundingRect(forCharacterRange range: NSRange) -> CGRect? {

        guard let attributedText = attributedText else { return nil }

        let textStorage = NSTextStorage(attributedString: attributedText)
        let layoutManager = NSLayoutManager()

        textStorage.addLayoutManager(layoutManager)

        let textContainer = NSTextContainer(size: bounds.size)
        textContainer.lineFragmentPadding = 0.0

        layoutManager.addTextContainer(textContainer)

        var glyphRange = NSRange()

        // Convert the range for glyphs.
        layoutManager.characterRange(forGlyphRange: range, actualGlyphRange: &glyphRange)

        return layoutManager.boundingRect(forGlyphRange: glyphRange, in: textContainer)       
    }
}

Example Usage (Swift 3/4)

let label = UILabel()
let text = "aa bb cc"
label.attributedText = NSAttributedString(string: text)
let sublayer = CALayer()
sublayer.borderWidth = 1
sublayer.frame = label.boundingRect(forCharacterRange: NSRange(text.range(of: "bb")!, in: text))
label.layer.addSublayer(sublayer)

Following Joshua's answer in code, I came up with the following which seems to work well:

- (CGRect)boundingRectForCharacterRange:(NSRange)range
{
    NSTextStorage *textStorage = [[NSTextStorage alloc] initWithAttributedString:[self attributedText]];
    NSLayoutManager *layoutManager = [[NSLayoutManager alloc] init];
    [textStorage addLayoutManager:layoutManager];
    NSTextContainer *textContainer = [[NSTextContainer alloc] initWithSize:[self bounds].size];
    textContainer.lineFragmentPadding = 0;
    [layoutManager addTextContainer:textContainer];

    NSRange glyphRange;

    // Convert the range for glyphs.
    [layoutManager characterRangeForGlyphRange:range actualGlyphRange:&glyphRange];

    return [layoutManager boundingRectForGlyphRange:glyphRange inTextContainer:textContainer];
}