How to Change the Color of Your Text in Discord

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Add some color to your Discord messages with this easy guide
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Discord has a lot of text formatting options, but unfortunately, making colored text isn't one of them. However, you can make your text colorful by putting it in a code box and using something called syntax highlighting. In this article we go over how colored text works on Discord and how to make your own text colored by using a generator or typing it yourself.

Making Colored Text in Discord

To type colored text in Discord, you must use a code block. You can use an online generator to convert your text into an ANSI code box, which is the most popular choice when making colored text. Otherwise, you can type your own.

Section 1 of 3:

How Color Text Works on Discord

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  1. In Discord, you can write code boxes by surrounding your text with three backticks on either side of your text (for example, ```code here``` ). Since code boxes are mainly used for, well, code, there's also the ability to note which language the code is written in—and depending on the language, this can sometimes display your text in a different color.
    • There are a lot of languages supported in Discord code blocks. Discord uses the highlight.js library to power their code blocks syntax highlighting, which supports well over 40 languages. [1]
    • The most common language to use for colored Discord text is ANSI. Because of this, there are some generators online that allow you to create colored Discord text using an ANSI code block very easily. Learn how to do this below .
      • ANSI is popular because it's much easier to manipulate what color your text is. Other languages will only allow you to change the color of your text if a certain condition is met (such as the line starting with a specific symbol or word).
    • Other popular code block languages include asciidoc, md, and diff. To learn how to type your own code block with colored text, jump to that section below .
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Section 2 of 3:

Using a Generator

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  1. There are a few options, but for this tutorial, we'll be using Rebane's popular text generator .
  2. Before you do any formatting, you should type your text into the generator. You can also copy and paste your text if you've already typed it up somewhere else.
  3. You can highlight as much or as little as you want, from the entire block of text to just one character.
  4. Your options are as follows:
    • Style: You can choose to make your text bold or underlined.
    • FG: This controls the color of your text. You can choose gray, red, olive green, golden yellow, blue, fuschia, teal, or white.
    • BG: This controls the highlight color of your text. You can choose dark blue, orange, lavender, cream, or one of four shades of gray (in varying tones).
  5. If you want to start over, highlight some or all of your text and click Reset All next to the Bold button.
  6. This will copy the text you just formatted in the generator in a Discord text block.
  7. Note that when you paste the text into Discord, it will look different from how it will look after it’s sent. You may see some small characters next to your text; this is the ANSI formatting that causes your text to change color.
    • If you're on Discord mobile, you won't see the formatting. However, anyone who reads your message on a computer will be able to see the color changes. [2]
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Section 3 of 3:

Typing Code Blocks

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  1. If this is your first time using a code block, you might want to go to a private or personal server to practice, just in case the message doesn't look how you want after it's been sent.
  2. The symbol used is the backtick (or grave). If you can't find this symbol on your keyboard, the ALT code is Alt + 9 + 6 .
    • On US QWERTY keyboards, the backtick is the button in the top-left corner.
    • On other QWERTY keyboards, the backtick button is located by the backspace key, or it might share a key with the number 7.
    • On AZERTY keyboards, the backtick button is by the Enter or Return button.
  3. In this example, we're going to use Markdown, which is shortened to "md." The syntax highlighting will change depending on which language you're using. If you don't know how to use syntax highlighting for a language, use your favorite search engine to find a guide for that language.
    • Press ↵ Enter after typing the name of the language; it won't send the message.
    • The code thus far should look like this:

    • ```md ```

  4. For Markdown, the syntax highlighting works as follows (the color of the text will be typed out between the symbols that give it that color):

    • [light blue](white)
      [light blue][orange]
      # dark blue
      * bullet point is yellow
      1. numbered list is yellow
      > green
      <green>
      <green blue>
      <green blue &equals; "light blue">
      text above dashes is dark blue

      text above equal signs is blue
      =====

    • Here's some example text. Try pasting it into Discord to see what it looks like:

      ```md
      ROUND ONE
      ===========
      > Players:
      1. John [20HP 10MP]
      2. Jane [15HP 25MP]
      3. Jack [30HP 0MP]
      4. Jill [10HP 40MP]
      > Enemies:
      *Goblin A
      *Goblin B
      *Spider
      ```

  5. You'll be able to see the colors when you preview the text before you send it, but you won't be able to see the code block background when typing. If you need to adjust your code block at all, you can simply edit the message to tweak things. [3]
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      References

      1. ↑ https://highlightjs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/supported-languages.html
      2. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/discordapp/comments/1aef33b/typing_in_color/
      3. ↑ https://gist.github.com/matthewzring/9f7bbfd102003963f9be7dbcf7d40e51#syntax-highlighting

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