Multiple foreground colors in PowerShell in one command

Question

I want to output many different foreground colors with one statement.

PS C:\> Write-Host "Red" -ForegroundColor Red Red 

This output is red.

PS C:\> Write-Host "Blue" -ForegroundColor Blue Blue 

This output is blue.

PS C:\> Write-Host "Red", "Blue" -ForegroundColor Red, Blue Red Blue 

This output is magenta, but I want the color to be red for the word red, and blue for the word blue via the one command. How can I do that?

Answer 1

You could roll your own Write-Color command or something that looks for inline tokens that change the color. This is how ANSI escape sequences used to work back in the BBS days.

But you could achieve what you want by doing:

Write-Host "Red " -f red -nonewline; Write-Host "Blue " -f blue; 

Here's a simple little function that does what you asked.

function Write-Color([String[]]$Text, [ConsoleColor[]]$Color) {     for ($i = 0; $i -lt $Text.Length; $i++) {         Write-Host $Text[$i] -Foreground $Color[$i] -NoNewLine     }     Write-Host }  Write-Color -Text Red,White,Blue -Color Red,White,Blue 

Answer 2

Edit (7th May 2018): I've updated Write-Color to 0.5 and published it as module. Also code is now published on github.

Changes in 0.5:

• added backgroundcolor
• added aliases T/B/C to shorter code
• added alias to function (can be used with “WC”)
• fixes to module publishing

Changes in 0.4

• fixed small issues
• published as module

Links to resources:

• GitHub Repository
• GitHub Reporting Issues
• PowerShellGallery Module
• Module description and a starting point.

Thanks to published module you can easily use the code as below:

Install-Module PSWriteColor Write-Color -Text "Some","Text" -Color Yellow,Red 

There is no more need to copy/paste code. Enjoy.

Old code is below. It's highly advised to use links above for newest code:

Edit (9th April 2018): I've updated Write-Color to v0.3. Feel free to get it at my site where I'm maintaining Write-Color. There are few small changes. Inluded -NoNewLine and -ShowTime option.

Edit (Jun 2017): updated with new version, added logging to file for logging purposes

Josh method was so great that I actually went and expanded it a bit for my needs. I've written blog post How to format PowerShell with Multiple Colors about it (with screenshots and all - for the whole story and usage).

    function Write-Color([String[]]$Text, [ConsoleColor[]]$Color = "White", [int]$StartTab = 0, [int] $LinesBefore = 0,[int] $LinesAfter = 0, [string] $LogFile = "", $TimeFormat = "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss") {     # version 0.2     # - added logging to file     # version 0.1     # - first draft     #      # Notes:     # - TimeFormat https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/8kb3ddd4.aspx      $DefaultColor = $Color[0]     if ($LinesBefore -ne 0) {  for ($i = 0; $i -lt $LinesBefore; $i++) { Write-Host "`n" -NoNewline } } # Add empty line before     if ($StartTab -ne 0) {  for ($i = 0; $i -lt $StartTab; $i++) { Write-Host "`t" -NoNewLine } }  # Add TABS before text     if ($Color.Count -ge $Text.Count) {         for ($i = 0; $i -lt $Text.Length; $i++) { Write-Host $Text[$i] -ForegroundColor $Color[$i] -NoNewLine }      } else {         for ($i = 0; $i -lt $Color.Length ; $i++) { Write-Host $Text[$i] -ForegroundColor $Color[$i] -NoNewLine }         for ($i = $Color.Length; $i -lt $Text.Length; $i++) { Write-Host $Text[$i] -ForegroundColor $DefaultColor -NoNewLine }     }     Write-Host     if ($LinesAfter -ne 0) {  for ($i = 0; $i -lt $LinesAfter; $i++) { Write-Host "`n" } }  # Add empty line after     if ($LogFile -ne "") {         $TextToFile = ""         for ($i = 0; $i -lt $Text.Length; $i++) {             $TextToFile += $Text[$i]         }         Write-Output "[$([datetime]::Now.ToString($TimeFormat))]$TextToFile" | Out-File $LogFile -Encoding unicode -Append     } }   Write-Color -Text "Red ", "Green ", "Yellow " -Color Red,Green,Yellow  Write-Color -Text "This is text in Green ",                    "followed by red ",                    "and then we have Magenta... ",                    "isn't it fun? ",                    "Here goes DarkCyan" -Color Green,Red,Magenta,White,DarkCyan  Write-Color -Text "This is text in Green ",                    "followed by red ",                    "and then we have Magenta... ",                    "isn't it fun? ",                    "Here goes DarkCyan" -Color Green,Red,Magenta,White,DarkCyan -StartTab 3 -LinesBefore 1 -LinesAfter 1  Write-Color "1. ", "Option 1" -Color Yellow, Green Write-Color "2. ", "Option 2" -Color Yellow, Green Write-Color "3. ", "Option 3" -Color Yellow, Green Write-Color "4. ", "Option 4" -Color Yellow, Green Write-Color "9. ", "Press 9 to exit" -Color Yellow, Gray -LinesBefore 1    Write-Color -LinesBefore 2 -Text "This little ","message is ", "written to log ", "file as well." -Color Yellow, White, Green, Red, Red -LogFile "C:\testing.txt" -TimeFormat "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss" Write-Color -Text "This can get ","handy if ", "want to display things, and log actions to file ", "at the same time." -Color Yellow, White, Green, Red, Red -LogFile "C:\testing.txt" 

It actually brings additional checks and features over Josh script.