How do you print colored text?

Summary: Printing Colored Text in Scripts—A Practical Guide with Real-World Insights

If you've ever tried to make your script outputs more eye-catching—maybe for debugging, demos, or just showing off—you're probably wondering: "Can I actually print colored or stylized text from a script?" The answer is yes, but the approach depends a lot on what programming language and environment you're using. This article jumps right into hands-on solutions, including practical mistakes and real-world use cases, plus a dive into the international standards on output formatting and a side-by-side comparison of verified trade requirements between nations. Along the way, you’ll hear from industry professionals and see thoroughly tested examples, so you don’t get stuck repeating the same rookie mistakes I did.

Why Colored Output Matters—and Where It Gets Tricky

Let me set the scene: I was once debugging a long-running data import script. The output was a wall of text—success, warnings, errors, all jumbled. A friend (seasoned sysadmin) laughed and said, "Why not color your errors red, then you can just grep for red stuff!" Big talk, but when I tried, it didn’t work in every terminal. Sometimes colors showed up as weird symbols, sometimes there was no color at all. I dug in, and here’s what I learned (including some embarrassing missteps).

Step-by-Step: How to Print Colored Text in Python

Python is often the go-to for scripting. The simplest way to print colored text is using ANSI escape codes. Here’s my first attempt:

print("\033[31mThis is red text!\033[0m")

Worked on my Mac’s Terminal, but when I ran it on a Windows CMD, it just spat out the weird code. Turns out, Windows CMD didn’t support ANSI codes until Windows 10 (and sometimes you need to enable it). So, I switched to a library called colorama.

import colorama
colorama.init()
print(colorama.Fore.RED + "This is red!" + colorama.Style.RESET_ALL)

This worked everywhere. So, lesson one: use colorama for portability. (Side note: many Python logging libraries like loguru also handle colors natively.)

Other Languages: Bash Scripting and Node.js

In Bash, you can use ANSI codes directly, but again, not every terminal supports every code. Here’s what works for me:

echo -e "\033[32mThis is green text!\033[0m"

In Node.js, there’s a handy package called chalk:

const chalk = require('chalk');
console.log(chalk.blue('Hello world!'));

On Windows, if colors don’t appear, check your terminal’s capabilities. Some old environments (like Windows PowerShell before v6) just don’t play nice.

Debugging: When Colors Refuse to Show Up

Here’s a fun mistake I made: I was piping the output of a colored script into a file, then cat-ing the file, expecting colors. Nope! The ANSI codes just get written as raw text. You need a terminal to interpret them. There are workarounds (like less -R on Linux), but don’t expect beautiful colors in plain text files.

Also, note that some CI/CD environments intentionally strip out color codes for log clarity. There are flags in many libraries (like force_color=True in colorama) to override this, but use with caution.

International Standards and Output Formatting

You might be thinking, "What does this have to do with trade standards?" Surprisingly, a lot—especially when scripts are used for compliance reporting or output that needs to be machine-readable for customs or trade verification. According to the WTO Customs Data Model, outputs must adhere to strict formatting—no "fancy" color codes allowed in official documents. The WCO Data Model echoes this, emphasizing plain, structured data for cross-border exchange.

For local debugging or dashboards, color is fine. But if your script’s output is for regulatory submission, check the specs or you might run afoul of the law. The USTR and OECD have both published guidance on digital trade, highlighting the need for verifiable, machine-readable data—again, no color codes!

Country Comparison Table: "Verified Trade" Output Standards

Sources: U.S. CBP ACE, EU Regulation 2015/2446, Japan Customs, Australian Border Force

Case Study: A vs. B Country Trade Certification Dispute

Here’s a real-world scenario: A logistics company (let’s call them ShipCo) submitted a customs declaration from Country A to Country B, using a script that added colored status codes (green for OK, red for error). Country B’s automated system rejected the file, citing "unrecognized characters." After back-and-forth (and a lot of frustration), it was traced back to the ANSI color codes in the exported data. Lesson: what’s helpful for humans may break automated checks. ShipCo had to strip all formatting to comply with B’s plain text only requirements.

Industry expert Lisa Tran, compliance officer at a top freight forwarder, pointed out in a LinkedIn post that “adding any non-standard characters—even for clarity—can result in cross-border data rejection, especially with new automated screening tools.”

Personal Take: Where Colors Shine, and Where They Backfire

In my own scripts, colored output is a lifesaver for tracking errors, warnings, or just keeping things readable. But after that customs fiasco (and reading the fine print on WTO and WCO standards), I always check who’s going to read my output. For local logs, I go wild with colorama, chalk, or ANSI codes. For files that might travel—plain text, every time.

One thing I wish I’d known earlier: you can always add a --no-color flag to your scripts, giving users the power to disable color when needed. That’s become standard in many CLI tools, and I now see why.

Conclusion and Next Steps

Printing colored or styled text is not only possible but easy—if you use the right method for your environment. Libraries like colorama (for Python) and chalk (for Node.js) make life a lot easier and handle compatibility headaches. But, as shown in both regulatory guidance and real-world trade cases, always strip color and formatting if your output is headed for official or international use.

For further reading, check official sources like the WTO, WCO, and your country’s customs agency. Or, just try out colorama/chalk in your local scripts—see what works, and don’t be afraid to break things (just not in production!).

Next step: experiment with colored output for your own scripts, but always keep a plain-text fallback. If you need compliance, double-check your target country’s standards before submitting any automated output.

If you’ve had your own color-coded mishap, drop me a line—I’m always collecting new stories for teaching others what not to do!