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  3. Node.js — Using the Styletext Utility for Terminal Text Formatting

Node.js — Using the Styletext Utility for Terminal Text Formatting

Starting from Node.js 20.10.0 and 21.7.0 you can format a text using a styleText utility function. You may know terminal styling packages like Chalk already. There’s a good chance you don’t need Chalk anymore 😃

styleText is a simple tool and useful in console applications. You can highlight text in the terminal that you want users to focus on, like an error message formatted in red and bold.

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  1. Using the Styletext Utility for Terminal Text Formatting

Using the New styleText Node.js Utility

The styleText function is available within Node.js’ util core module. It takes two arguments: the first one is a text format or a list of text formats and the second is the actual text to format.

Here are some sample usages of formatting text:

import { styleText } from 'node:util'

const redText = styleText('red', 'I’m a red text')  
console.log(redText)

const redBoldText = styleText('bold', `${redText}, but bold`)  
console.log(redBoldText)

const blackWithGreenBg = styleText(['black', 'bgGreen'], 'I’m green with a black background')  
console.log(blackWithGreenBg)

const yellowBoldUnderline = styleText(['yellow', 'bold', 'underline'], 'I’m yellow, bold, underlined')  
console.log(yellowBoldUnderline)

Formatted text using Node.js `styleText` utility

Available Format Modifiers

Text styling is straightforward! You can find the comprehensive list of supported text formats in the Node.js docs. The text formats use 3 groups: general modifiers, foreground colors, and background colors:

  • modifiers: reset, bold, italic, underline, doubleunderline, strikethrough, hidden, dim, overlinked, blink, inverse, framed
  • foreground colors: black, red, redBright, green, greenBright, yellow, yellowBright, blue, blueBright, magenta, magentaBright, cyan, cyanBright, white, whiteBright, gray (with aliases grey and blackBright)
  • background colors: bgBlack, bgRed, bgRedBright, bgGreen, bgGreenBright, bgYellow, bgYellowBright, bgBlue, bgBlueBright, bgMagenta, bgMagentaBright, bgCyan, bgCyanBright, bgWhite, bgWhiteBright, bgGray (with aliases bgGrey and bgBlackBright)

Enjoy text formatting!

Mentioned Resources

Marcus Pöhls

Marcus is a fullstack JS developer. He’s passionate about the hapi framework for Node.js and loves to build web apps and APIs. Creator of Futureflix and the “learn hapi” learning path.

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