How to echo with different colors in the Windows c

Question

I know that the color bf command sets the colors of the whole command line window but I wanted to to print one single line in a different color.

Answer 1

Put the following lines into a file called ColourText.bas on your desktop.

Imports System
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices
Imports Microsoft.Win32

Public Module MyApplication  
Public Declare Function GetStdHandle Lib "kernel32" Alias "GetStdHandle" (ByVal nStdHandle As Long) As Long
Public Declare Function SetConsoleTextAttribute Lib "kernel32" Alias "SetConsoleTextAttribute" (ByVal hConsoleOutput As Long, ByVal wAttributes As Long) As Long
Public Const STD_ERROR_HANDLE = -12&
Public Const STD_INPUT_HANDLE = -10&
Public Const STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE = -11&

Sub Main()
    Dim hOut as Long
    Dim Ret as Long
    Dim Colour As Long
    Dim Colour1 As Long
    Dim Text As String
    hOut  = GetStdHandle(STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE)
    Colour = CLng("&h" & Split(Command(), " ")(0))
    Colour1 = Clng("&h" & Split(Command(), " ")(1))
    Text = Mid(Command(), 7)
    Ret = SetConsoleTextAttribute(hOut,  Colour)
    Console.Out.WriteLine(text)
    Ret = SetConsoleTextAttribute(hOut, Colour1)
End Sub
End Module

Save it and type the following in a command prompt.

"C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\vbc.exe" /target:exe /out:"%userprofile%\desktop\ColourText.exe" "%userprofile%\desktop\ColourText.bas" /verbose

A file called ColourText.exe will appear on your desktop. Move it to the Windows folder.

To use you must use two character codes to set colour eg 01 not 1.

ColourText ColourOfText ColourOfTextWhenFinished Text

EG To set blue on white by not passing any text, then red on white text, finishing with blue on grey.

ColourText F1 F1
ColourText F2 71 This is green on white

or

ColourText F1 F1
cls
ColourText F4 F4
Echo Hello
Echo Hello today
ColourText F1 F1

Also the CLS command becomes interesting. Color command without parameters resets all colours to startup colours.

To get the colour code add the following numbers together. Use Calculator in programmers mode. These are hex numbers. They can be added together eg Red + Blue + FG Intensity = 13 = D. As 10+ wasn't used the background will be black. Colour codes MUST be two characters, eg 08 not 8.

FOREGROUND_RED = &H4     '  text color contains red.
FOREGROUND_INTENSITY = &H8     '  text color is intensified.
FOREGROUND_GREEN = &H2     '  text color contains green.
FOREGROUND_BLUE = &H1     '  text color contains blue.
BACKGROUND_BLUE = &H10    '  background color contains blue.
BACKGROUND_GREEN = &H20    '  background color contains green.
BACKGROUND_INTENSITY = &H80    '  background color is intensified.
BACKGROUND_RED = &H40    '  background color contains red.

Answer 2

I wanted to to print one single line in a different color.

Use ANSI Escape Sequences.

Windows before 10 - no native support for ANSI colors on the console

For Windows version below 10, the Windows command console doesn't support output coloring by default. You could install either Cmder, ConEmu, ANSICON or Mintty (used by default in GitBash and Cygwin) to add coloring support to your Windows command console.

Windows 10 - Command Line Colors

Starting from Windows 10 the Windows console support ANSI Escape Sequences and some colors by default. The feature shipped with the Threshold 2 Update in Nov 2015.

MSDN Documentation

Demo

Batch Command

The win10colors.cmd was written by Michele Locati:

@echo off
cls
echo [101;93m STYLES [0m
echo ^<ESC^>[0m [0mReset[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[1m [1mBold[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[4m [4mUnderline[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[7m [7mInverse[0m
echo.
echo [101;93m NORMAL FOREGROUND COLORS [0m
echo ^<ESC^>[30m [30mBlack[0m (black)
echo ^<ESC^>[31m [31mRed[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[32m [32mGreen[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[33m [33mYellow[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[34m [34mBlue[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[35m [35mMagenta[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[36m [36mCyan[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[37m [37mWhite[0m
echo.
echo [101;93m NORMAL BACKGROUND COLORS [0m
echo ^<ESC^>[40m [40mBlack[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[41m [41mRed[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[42m [42mGreen[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[43m [43mYellow[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[44m [44mBlue[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[45m [45mMagenta[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[46m [46mCyan[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[47m [47mWhite[0m (white)
echo.
echo [101;93m STRONG FOREGROUND COLORS [0m
echo ^<ESC^>[90m [90mWhite[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[91m [91mRed[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[92m [92mGreen[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[93m [93mYellow[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[94m [94mBlue[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[95m [95mMagenta[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[96m [96mCyan[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[97m [97mWhite[0m
echo.
echo [101;93m STRONG BACKGROUND COLORS [0m
echo ^<ESC^>[100m [100mBlack[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[101m [101mRed[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[102m [102mGreen[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[103m [103mYellow[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[104m [104mBlue[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[105m [105mMagenta[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[106m [106mCyan[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[107m [107mWhite[0m
echo.
echo [101;93m COMBINATIONS [0m
echo ^<ESC^>[31m                     [31mred foreground color[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[7m                      [7minverse foreground ^<-^> background[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[7;31m                   [7;31minverse red foreground color[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[7m and nested ^<ESC^>[31m [7mbefore [31mnested[0m
echo ^<ESC^>[31m and nested ^<ESC^>[7m [31mbefore [7mnested[0m

Answer 3

To get this working on Windows 10, you can enable this flag: ENABLE_VIRTUAL_TERMINAL_PROCESSING.

With this registry key you can set this by default

[HKCU\Console] VirtualTerminalLevel dword 0x1

Answer 4

You can just creates files with the name of the word to print, uses findstr which can print in color, and then erases the file. Try this example:

@echo off
SETLOCAL EnableDelayedExpansion
for /F "tokens=1,2 delims=#" %%a in ('"prompt #$H#$E# & echo on & for %%b in (1) do rem"') do (
  set "DEL=%%a"
)

call :ColorText 0a "green"
call :ColorText 0C "red"
call :ColorText 0b "cyan"
echo(
call :ColorText 19 "blue"
call :ColorText 2F "white"
call :ColorText 4e "yellow"

goto :eof

:ColorText
echo off
<nul set /p ".=%DEL%" > "%~2"
findstr /v /a:%1 /R "^$" "%~2" nul
del "%~2" > nul 2>&1
goto :eof

Run color /? to get a list of colors.

Answer 5

You could use ANSICON to enable ANSI terminal codes in modern Windows. There are 32 and 64 bit versions that I have used in Windows XP and Windows 7.

Answer 6

We used to do this with ANSI terminal codes. Not sure if they still work, but you could try them.