# Coloring individual tick labels in Makie

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/coloring-individual-tick-labels-in-makie/135750>\
**Category:** Visualization\
**Tags:** makie\
**Created:** [February 20, 2026, 12:37pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/coloring-individual-tick-labels-in-makie/135750 "2026-02-20T12:37:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Datseris](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/datseris/32/13406_2.png) [@Datseris](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Datseris)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2026, 12:37pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/coloring-individual-tick-labels-in-makie/135750/1 "2026-02-20T12:37:36Z")

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Is it possible to color individual labels in Makie?

Example:

```julia
fig, ax = scatter(1:5, 1:5)
ax.xticks = 1:5
ax.xticklabelcolor = [:white, :white, :red, :red, :white]
fig

```

which errors.

Context: I have this plot:

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/original/3X/a/f/aff333e79d9eeeda256aaae535f07fb083354398.png)

and I want to highlight some entries of the x axis of the 2nd panel as having some special property. I was going to make the labels red but this doesn’t work.

Any other suggestions for highlighting?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Datseris](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/datseris/32/13406_2.png) [@Datseris](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Datseris)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2026, 12:42pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/coloring-individual-tick-labels-in-makie/135750/2 "2026-02-20T12:42:43Z")

</div>

Another idea is to add some special text _above_ the top spline of the second panel axis. But unfortunately I didn’t find a way to acheive this with `text!` while keeping the text in data coordinates. Effectively I want to plot text with y position = 4 (as axis limits is 3), but keep the plot limits to 3.

haha sorry does it even make sense what I Say? I want to put some text here:

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/original/3X/f/0/f00ab7cd9eefe96c89c10d009c811d5f9a65c6c5.png)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Datseris](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/datseris/32/13406_2.png) [@Datseris](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Datseris)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2026, 12:54pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/coloring-individual-tick-labels-in-makie/135750/3 "2026-02-20T12:54:00Z")

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right, I’ve solved my problem by creating a new axis on top of the axis in the layout:

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/original/3X/f/2/f2a10fd613b601b3dabf4e1ddc643bbe8078bb16.png)

so let’s keep this issue open now targetting the original question: can different tick labels be colored differently?

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**Author:** ![sdanisch](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/sdanisch/32/1406_2.png) [@sdanisch](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/sdanisch)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2026, 1:10pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/coloring-individual-tick-labels-in-makie/135750/4 "2026-02-20T13:10:04Z")

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Yes, but you need to pass it **first** :

```julia
using GLMakie
fig, ax, pl = scatter(1:5, 1:5; axis=(xticks = 1:5, xticklabelcolor = [:green, :blue, :red, :red, :yellow]))

```

You cant switch between single color and multiple color in Makie for a plot type after its creation.

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**Author:** ![jules](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/41988e/32.png) [@jules](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jules)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2026, 1:18pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/coloring-individual-tick-labels-in-makie/135750/5 "2026-02-20T13:18:45Z")

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In general we don’t support multiple tick colors as that would break if you zoomed and the number of ticks changed somehow. But one can always modify the linesegments or text plots that make up the axis. It’s internal though, just mentioning it in case Simon’s suggestion doesn’t work