How To Print Colored Text in Python

Changing the colour of certain parts of a string when printing the output of a Python programme to the terminal may make it easier to read. We can approach this in a variety of ways and use packages to make things easier, as we will see in this tutorial.

Using ANSI Escape Sequences

The most basic way to print coloured text from a Python programme is to use ANSI escape sequences. To accomplish this, we will create a class with properties for applying different colours to text. Let's create a file called colors.py that contains a colours class, import it into the programme, and then use it on a f string.

The colors.py would look like this:

class bcolors:
    HEADER = '\033[95m'
    OKBLUE = '\033[94m'
    OKGREEN = '\033[90m'
    WARNING = '\033[93m'
    FAIL = '\033[91m'
    ENDC = '\033[0m'
    BOLD = '\033[1m'
    UNDERLINE = '\033[4m'

We can import the bcolors class from colors.py using the following statements.

from colors import bcolors

return f'Successfully downloaded {bcolors.OKGREEN}{file.title}{bcolors.ENDC} to {formt}'

Each ANSI character escape sequence, as we can see, takes the form 033[XXXm. The text style is indicated by the part following the [(square bracket). Numbers 90-96 offer a variety of text colours. Here are some examples:

Number	Color
90	grey
91	red
92	green
93	yellow
94	blue
95	pink
96	turquoises

Changing the Background Color of Text

To change the background colour of text, use the ANSI escape sequence character numbers 100-107. Let's go ahead and add some background colours to the bcolors class we just created.

Colors.py should now look like this:

class bcolors:
    HEADER = '\033[95m'
    OKBLUE = '\033[94m'
    OKGREEN = '\033[92m'
    WARNING = '\033[93m'
    FAIL = '\033[91m'
    ENDC = '\033[0m'
    BOLD = '\033[1m'
    UNDERLINE = '\033[4m'
    # Background colors:
    GREYBG = '\033[100m'
    REDBG = '\033[101m'
    GREENBG = '\033[102m'
    YELLOWBG = '\033[103m'
    BLUEBG = '\033[104m'
    PINKBG = '\033[105m'
    CYANBG = '\033[106m'

Let us see how this will work.

return f'Successfully downloaded {bcolors.GREENBG}{file.title}{bcolors.ENDC} to {formt}'

Here are all the available background colors and their corresponding ANSI number:

Number	Color
100	gray
101	red
102	green
103	yellow
104	blue
105	pink
106	turquoise

All the Available Font Effects

For reference here are all the available font effect codes to change the style of text in the terminal:

Number(s)	Effect
0	Reset / Normal
1	Bold or increased intensity
2	Faint (decreased intensity)
3	Italic
4	Underline
5	Slow Blink
6	Rapid Blink
7	[[reverse video]]
8	Conceal
9	Crossed-out
10	Primary(default) font
11–19	Alternate font
20	Fraktur
21	Bold off or Double Underline
22	Normal color or intensity
23	Not italic, not Fraktur
24	Underline off
25	Blink off
27	Inverse off
28	Reveal
29	Not crossed out
30–37	Set foreground color
38	Set foreground color
39	Default foreground color
40–47	Set background color
48	Set background color
49	Default background color
51	Framed
52	Encircled
53	Overlined
54	Not framed or encircled
55	Not overlined
60	ideogram underline
61	ideogram double underline
62	ideogram overline
63	ideogram double overline
64	ideogram stress marking
65	ideogram attributes off
90–97	Set bright foreground color
100–107	Set bright background color

The colorama Package

Install the colorama package if you'd rather use a package to change the print colours in Python. To install it, enter the following command into your terminal:

pip install colorama

Then, in your programme, import the foreground, background, and style classes:

from colorama import Fore, Back, Style

To make some text red, use Fore.RED, and to make the rest of the text normal, use Style. RESET ALL

return f'Successfully downloaded {Fore.RED}{file.title}{Style.RESET_ALL} to {formt}'

Here are all the formatters available in colorama:

Fore - BLACK, RED, GREEN, YELLOW, BLUE, MAGENTA, CYAN, WHITE, RESET.
Back - BLACK, RED, GREEN, YELLOW, BLUE, MAGENTA, CYAN, WHITE, RESET.
Style - DIM, NORMAL, BRIGHT, RESET_ALL

Now you can easily print colored text in the python terminal!

Keep Learning!