# Plots: JuliaGraphics / Colors.jl removing the guess of colours
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plots-juliagraphics-colors-jl-removing-the-guess-of-colours/50010
**Category:** General Usage
**Tags:** plots, colour
**Created:** [November 11, 2020, 11:30pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plots-juliagraphics-colors-jl-removing-the-guess-of-colours/50010 "2020-11-11T23:30:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@JosephPollacco](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/JosephPollacco)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2020, 11:30pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plots-juliagraphics-colors-jl-removing-the-guess-of-colours/50010/1 "2020-11-11T23:30:38Z")
We are ever so grateful of having such a great variety of colour options in Plots which is great for publications. But the question is how can we get a preview of the colour before trying them out?
[Colours](https://github.com/JuliaGraphics/Colors.jl/blob/master/src/names_data.jl)
```julia
# This is the union of every color defined in X11 and in SVG, prefering the SVG
# definition when they clash.
const color_names = Dict(
"aliceblue" => (240, 248, 255),
"antiquewhite" => (250, 235, 215),
"antiquewhite1" => (255, 239, 219),
"antiquewhite2" => (238, 223, 204),
"antiquewhite3" => (205, 192, 176),
"antiquewhite4" => (139, 131, 120),
"aqua" => ( 0, 255, 255),
"aquamarine" => (127, 255, 212),
"aquamarine1" => (127, 255, 212),
"aquamarine2" => (118, 238, 198),
"aquamarine3" => (102, 205, 170),
"aquamarine4" => ( 69, 139, 116),
etc...
```
It will be amazing if we can get something like:
Many thanks for any help you may provide,
Joseph
---
### Author:  [@Tamas\_Papp](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Tamas_Papp)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2020, 10:29am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plots-juliagraphics-colors-jl-removing-the-guess-of-colours/50010/2 "2020-11-12T10:29:48Z")
The `xcolor` docs has a section that lists them all (“colors by name”):
> **[xcolor.pdf](https://mirror.mwt.me/ctan/macros/latex/contrib/xcolor/xcolor.pdf)**
>
> 844.36 KB
Your TeX installation may have a local copy, too, use `texdoc xcolor` or similar to access it.
---
### Author:  [@cormullion](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/cormullion)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2020, 11:28am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plots-juliagraphics-colors-jl-removing-the-guess-of-colours/50010/3 "2020-11-12T11:28:17Z")
You could try diving into the Colors.jl package and display a chart. In a terminal:
```julia
open .julia/packages/Colors/kc2v8/images/color_names_sorted.svg
```
On my Mac this opens in the Safari web browser. The `kc2v8` is the package ID, it might be different for you…
---
### Author:  [@tim.holy](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/tim.holy)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2020, 2:08pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plots-juliagraphics-colors-jl-removing-the-guess-of-colours/50010/4 "2020-11-12T14:08:00Z")
Finally in a VSCode or IJulia terminal (probably Pluto too?) if you just let a color value display it will show as the color.
---
### Author:  [@sijo](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/sijo)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2020, 3:14pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plots-juliagraphics-colors-jl-removing-the-guess-of-colours/50010/5 "2020-11-12T15:14:22Z")
To expand on @tim.holy’s answer, running the following in IJulia will show the name and color (as a 25x25 mm square) for every color defined in that file:
```julia
using Colors
for c in Colors.color_names
display(c.first)
display(RGB((c.second./255)...))
end
```
Or to get a more compact output:
```julia
using Colors
for (name, code) in Colors.color_names
rgb = RGB((code./255)...)
rgb_html = ""
display("text/html", "$rgb_html $name")
end
```
---
### Author:  [@JosephPollacco](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/JosephPollacco)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2020, 10:09pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plots-juliagraphics-colors-jl-removing-the-guess-of-colours/50010/6 "2020-11-12T22:09:04Z")
It is so amazing to have such a vibrant community 😌. I am wandering if we can update the website to include a link to a pdf file with the name of the colour and the colour sample as you kindly showed above:
https://github.com/JuliaGraphics/Colors.jl/blob/master/src/names\_data.jl
---
### Author:  [@sijo](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/sijo)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2020, 8:29am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plots-juliagraphics-colors-jl-removing-the-guess-of-colours/50010/7 "2020-11-17T08:29:13Z")
The Colors.jl documentation has [Named Colors · Colors](http://juliagraphics.github.io/Colors.jl/stable/namedcolors/)
Is this what you had in mind?
---
### Author:  [@cormullion](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/cormullion)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2020, 8:56am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plots-juliagraphics-colors-jl-removing-the-guess-of-colours/50010/8 "2020-11-17T08:56:55Z")
Perhaps OP was working offline… It’s not easy to browse the documentation for Julia packages if you’re off-line - the downloaded package contains the documentation sources, but it doesn’t have the built HTML files.
---
### Author:  [@JosephPollacco](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/JosephPollacco)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2020, 9:45am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plots-juliagraphics-colors-jl-removing-the-guess-of-colours/50010/9 "2020-11-25T09:45:21Z")
A great thanks for providing me the solution to our question.
Will you kindly update the website to link:
https://github.com/JuliaGraphics/Colors.jl/blob/master/src/names\_data.jl
With
http://juliagraphics.github.io/Colors.jl/stable/namedcolors/
Thanks,
Joseph
---
### Author:  [@sijo](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/sijo)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2020, 11:19am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plots-juliagraphics-colors-jl-removing-the-guess-of-colours/50010/10 "2020-11-25T11:19:04Z")
This is twice the same URL… Do you want to modify [Named Colors · Colors](http://juliagraphics.github.io/Colors.jl/stable/namedcolors/) to link to the source code? You can propose the change yourself: click on “Edit on GitHub” in the top right corner of that page, then click on the pencil icon to propose a change.