WARNING: DO NOT EDIT THE .ini FILE WHILE THE GAME IS RUNNING, OR ELSE YOUR SETTINGS WILL BE RESET WHEN YOU SAVE THE FILE.

Note: This guide assumes that anything in quotes does not need to be typed out with quotes in-game. Quotes within quotes, however, should be typed out.




This chart contains all 22 default colors, the 260 colors added in Fuzzball's Text Color PK3, and the 5 colors added by Cutstuff user Giga Otomia in newtextcolours_265.pk3 (I don't know how many servers use this specific wad, but it's listed in TSPG which implies that someone added it, so it's here for posterity I guess?).

How to add colored text
In chat:
Note that the square brackets are curly in the examples because text with opening square brackets aren't shown in this forum's implementation of BBCode.
Type the "\c" function in chat, and then type your desired color code after the command without a space.
The 22 default colors (The entire top row) can just be typed as-is, but the added colors need square brackets surrounding them.

In all chat messages:
Type the console variable "cl_chatprefix \c" in console, or ctrl+f (Search in file) "cl_chatprefix=" in your Zandronum .ini file (This will have the name you set on your operating system) and type the function on the line containing the console variable. This, of course, does not work with cl_chatsuffix.

In your player name:
Note: Names have a limit of 31 characters, which includes any characters associated with a function. Watch out for that.
The easiest way to change your player name is on the title screen. Simply go to Player Setup, and edit your name using the function. However, in this instance the function only works if you're using the default color codes. If you want to use the added color codes, you need to use the CVar or change the .ini file.
To change your name through the console, type "name \c". To change it through the .ini file, ctrl+f "Doom.Player" and scroll down to the "name=" line and type the function.

In binds:
Console commands need an extra backslash added to the color function. For example, if you want to bind your "=" key to make it send a chat message saying "This game sucks" in red, you would type "bind = "say \\cgthis game sucks"".

Examples
"\chMegaman" -> "Megaman"
"\cgProto \cuMan" -> "Proto Man"
"\c{c0}Bounce Man" -> "Bounce Man"

Troubleshooting tips

• The function uses a backslash ("\"), not a forward slash ("/").
  
• The function needs to be typed in all lowercase.
  
  • The color codes are not case-sensitive, so those don't have to be lowercase like the function.
• Don't include spaces before or after the function unless you want spaces— if you type "\cg fart" instead of "\cgfart", you will get " fart"
• Console commands generally need an extra backslash added to functions, but CVars and .ini file variables don't.
• Watch out for character limits— chat messages have them too (128 characters). Zandronum always prunes extra characters in names and chat messages.

Have fun with this knowledge of colors in meganmans!!!111!!11!!!11!!1

image embeds are fixed now! turns out the image host i was using shut down a couple months ago, so i'm now using catbox.moe which will hopefully serve as a more permanent choice

An extra note 100 news colors got added since november '24 but they currently only work on the latest zandronum build (hosted on TSPG), not on the Zandronum shipped with MM8BDM 6b