no frames version

Color Attribute Tool

Latest revision: 26 Sep 1999


Purpose

(This is my original note from 1996.)

Hello:

Here is list of all the colors you might call by name: gold, red, violet, and so-on plus their associated values: "#CD7F32" and so-on.

This is a page I'm making because no one else has done it. Similar pages are listed below, but they just don't show what I need.

The page can test any client application, not just Netscape Navigator v3 and v4. The client application must support setting table cell color. So this page should also work for Microsoft Internet Explorer v2, Apple's Cyberdog v2, and Opera with possibly varying results.

Later,
  Charles

PS. Another good way to look at this information is the RGB Colors page, by (and thanks to) Andrew Daviel.


Color Tags

The color values described here have traditionally been used directly within HTML to set background colors and text colors. In today's HTML version 4.0 these values are used in Cascading Style Sheets.


Color Tables

Colors are assigned in RGB hexadecimal (as in COLOR="#D9D919") or with one of 16 widely understood color names. These colors were picked because they were the standard 16 colors supported with the MS Windows VGA palette. This list is also mentioned by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) an organization that sets standards.

Standard Colors

Colors Called by Name Compared to Colors Called by RGB Value
white #FFFFFF gray #808080
silver #C0C0C0 black #000000
red #FF0000 maroon #800000
yellow #FFFF00 olive #808000
lime #00FF00 green #008000
aqua #00FFFF teal #008080
blue #0000FF navy #000080
fuchsia #FF00FF purple #800080


Other Colors

There is a list1 on the Internet that does a good job of associating English language color names with hexadecimal RGB values. This list of colors has been popular around the Internet for at least a year. Usually listed in a more human format -- capitalized with spaces between words. Broswers respond to these names without spaces.

The results of these colors in most browsers are not consistent, thus the look of the tables. The single-word color names do show interesting differences. It is not surprising that many two- and three-word color names do not work. Also the two- and three-word color names fail in an inconsistent manner.

Browser engineers should have unsupported colors fail to a neutral color, like gray. I think some people have tried a color name and when they got a non-black color they assumed that was the correct color.

Capitalization and Spacing Example
mediumspringgreen     #7FFF00
medium spring green     #7FFF00
MediumSpringGreen     #7FFF00
Medium Spring Green     #7FFF00



Related Pages Elsewhere


Location: http://www.gaudette-net.com/pages/color.html
created: 07Oct1996 revised: Wed, Sep 29, 1999 next: done?
Copyright 1996-1998, Charles Gaudette, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED