22.3.2 Colored text ¶

Synopses:

\textcolor{name}{...}
\textcolor[color model]{color specification}{...}

or

\color{name}
\color[color model]{color specification}

The affected text gets the color. This line

\textcolor{magenta}{My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;}
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

causes the first half to be in magenta while the rest is in black. You can use a color declared with \definecolor in exactly the same way that we just used the builtin color ‘magenta’.

\definecolor{MidlifeCrisisRed}{rgb}{1.0,0.11,0.0}
I'm thinking about getting a \textcolor{MidlifeCrisisRed}{sports car}.

The two \textcolor and \color differ in that the first is a command form, enclosing the text to be colored as an argument. Often this form is more convenient, or at least more explicit. The second form is a declaration, as in The moon is made of {\color{green} green} cheese, so it is in effect until the end of the current group or environment. This is sometimes useful when writing macros or as below where it colors everything inside the center environment, including the vertical and horizontal lines.

\begin{center} \color{blue}
  \begin{tabular}{l|r}
    UL &UR \\ \hline
    LL &LR 
  \end{tabular}
\end{center}

You can use color in equations. A document might have this definition in the preamble

\definecolor{highlightcolor}{RGB}{225,15,0}

and then contain this equation.

\begin{equation}
  \int_a^b \textcolor{highlightcolor}{f'(x)}\,dx=f(b)-f(a)
\end{equation}

Typically the colors used in a document are declared in a class or style but sometimes you want a one-off. Those are the second forms in the synopses.

Colors of \textcolor[rgb]{0.33,0.14,0.47}{Purple} and
{\color[rgb]{0.72,0.60,0.37}Gold} for the team.

The format of color specification depends on the color model (see Color models). For instance, while rgb takes three numbers, gray takes only one.

The selection was \textcolor[gray]{0.5}{grayed out}.

Colors inside colors do not combine. Thus

\textcolor{green}{kind of \textcolor{blue}{blue}}

has a final word that is blue, not a combination of blue and green.