Using serial output for debug messages and console logs is very frequent tool for firmware and software developers. But when working on big systems and large data outputs it’s often not easy to find out needed data between lots of symbols.

Using color is a easy obtainable improvement, which can help to increase readability of logs by human eyes. This short article covers basic color codes and usage examples. Coloring is supported by many terminal programs, such as PuTTy, etc.

ANSI color definition

Foreground colors:

Bright foreground colors:

Background colors:

Reset color code: \033[m

Example usage for colors

void color_debug(void) {
    // Outputs black text on green background and returns back to normal 
    printf("\033[0;30;41m Output black text on green background \r\n \033[0;39;49m");
};

Output:

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