How to use NSAttributedString in SwiftUI

In iOS 15, Apple introduces AttributedString as a way to styling string. It is a replacement for NSAttributedString.

We can use this new struct to initialize a SwiftUI Text view.

private var attributedString: AttributedString {
    let string = "Attributed String"
    var attributedString = AttributedString(string)
    // 1
    attributedString.font = .boldSystemFont(ofSize: 40)
    attributedString.foregroundColor = .pink
    
    // 2
    if let range = attributedString.range(of: "Attributed") {
        attributedString[range].foregroundColor = .orange
        attributedString[range].underlineStyle = .single
    }
    
    return attributedString
}

var body: some View {
    Text(attributedString)
}

1 We set font and text color.
2 And set different colors and underline style for a substring.

If you start a new SwiftUI project, you might no longer need to care about NSAttributedString.

But if you are in the process of gradually migrating from UIKit to SwiftUI. There might be a time when you need to use NSAttributedString in SwiftUI code.

The good news is you can easily do that.

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How to use NSAttributedString in SwiftUI

AttributedString comes pre-equipped with an initializer that can initialize AttributedString from an NSAttributedString.

init(_ nsStr: NSAttributedString)

In the following example, we convert an existing NSAttributedString to AttributedString to be able to use it in SwiftUI text view.

private var content: AttributedString {
    let string = "Attributed String"
    let attributes: [NSAttributedString.Key : Any] = [
        NSAttributedString.Key.foregroundColor: UIColor.systemPink,
        NSAttributedString.Key.font: UIFont.boldSystemFont(ofSize: 40),
        NSAttributedString.Key.underlineStyle: NSUnderlineStyle.single.rawValue
    ]
    // 1
    let nsAttributedString = NSAttributedString(string: string, attributes: attributes)
    // 2
    let attributedString = AttributedString(nsAttributedString)
    return attributedString
}

var body: some View {
    // 3
    Text(content)
}

1 An example of NSAttributedString.
2 Create an AttributedString from NSAttributedString.
3 Text view work with AttributedString.