How does one output bold text in powershell?

Question

I got a Powershell script that do some automatic procedures, I use a "Write-Host" at the end of each one of them to tell the technical user that step is finished, but I realize is kind of hard to read and keep track so, ¿Is there a way to output a bold text?

Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

See also:

Console Virtual Terminal Sequences

Starting in PowerShell 5.1, the PowerShell console supports VT escape sequences that can be used to position and format console text. Note that this

# Enable underline
$esc = [char]27
"$esc[4mOutput is now underlined!"

# Disable underline
$esc = [char]27
"$esc[0mReset"

Or as pointed out already, with Write-Host, just switch the text color inline for contrast...

Write-Host -ForegroundColor gray 'This is not bold ' -NoNewline
Write-Host -ForegroundColor White 'This is Bold ' -NoNewline
Write-Host -ForegroundColor gray 'This is not bold'

... that is if you did not download or can't download and use external stuff.

Answer 2

Just wording...
Seen from the 'ConvertFrom-MarkDown` cmdlet (included with PowerShell 6 and higher), bold text actually exists:
_{(Using the default PowerShell color scheme)}

('This is **Bold** text' | ConvertFrom-MarkDown -AsVt100EncodedString).VT100EncodedString

But this is not completely fair, as behind the scenes, it is a matter of playing with colors. Knowing that the default foregroundcolor is Gray and White is just a little brigther and therefore looks Bold.
Meaning that the above statement is similar to:

Write-Host 'This is ' -NoNewline; Write-Host -ForegroundColor White 'Bold ' -NoNewline; Write-Host 'Text'