Color, as a topic, extends beyond the Font
object; font color is just the first place it’s come up. Accordingly, it bears a little deeper thought than usual since we’ll want to reuse the same objects and protocol to specify color in the other contexts; it makes sense to craft a general solution that will bear the expected
reuse.
There are three historical sources to draw from for this API.
- The w:rPr/w:color element. This is used by default when applying color directly to text or when setting the text color of a style. This corresponds to the Font.Color property [undocumented, unfortunately]. This element supports RGB colors, theme colors, and a tint or shade of a theme color.
- The w:rPr/w14:textFill element. This is used by Word for fancy text like gradient and shadow effects. This corresponds to the Font.Fill property.
- The PowerPoint font color UI. This seems like a reasonable compromise between the prior two, allowing direct-ish access to common color options while holding the door open for the Font.fill operations to be added later if required.
Candidate Protocol¶
docx.text.run.Run
has a font property:
>>> from docx import Document >>> from docx.text.run import Font, Run >>> run = Document[].add_paragraph[].add_run[] >>> isinstance[run, Run] True >>> font = run.font >>> isinstance[font, Font] True
docx.text.run.Font
has a read-only color property, returning a docx.dml.color.ColorFormat
object:
>>> from docx.dml.color import ColorFormat >>> color = font.color >>> isinstance[font.color, ColorFormat] True >>> font.color = 'anything' AttributeError: can't set attribute
docx.dml.color.ColorFormat
has a read-only type
property and read/write rgb
, theme_color
, and brightness
properties.
ColorFormat.type
returns one of MSO_COLOR_TYPE.RGB, MSO_COLOR_TYPE.THEME, MSO_COLOR_TYPE.AUTO, or None
, the latter indicating font has no directly-applied color:
ColorFormat.rgb
returns an
RGBColor
object when type is MSO_COLOR_TYPE.RGB. It may also report an RGBColor value when type is MSO_COLOR_TYPE.THEME, since an RGB color may also be present in that case. According to the spec, the RGB color value is ignored when a theme color is specified, but Word writes the current RGB value of the
theme color along with the theme color name [e.g. ‘accent1’] when assigning a theme color; perhaps as a convenient value for a file browser to use. The value of .type must be consulted to determine whether the RGB value is operative or a “best-guess”:
>>> font.color.type RGB [1] >>> font.color.rgb RGBColor[0x3f, 0x2c, 0x36]
Assigning an RGBColor
value to ColorFormat.rgb
causes ColorFormat.type
to become
MSO_COLOR_TYPE.RGB:
>>> font.color.type None >>> font.color.rgb = RGBColor[0x3f, 0x2c, 0x36] >>> font.color.type RGB [1] >>> font.color.rgb RGBColor[0x3f, 0x2c, 0x36]
ColorFormat.theme_color
returns a member of MSO_THEME_COLOR_INDEX when type is MSO_COLOR_TYPE.THEME:
>>> font.color.type THEME [2] >>> font.color.theme_color ACCENT_1 [5]
Assigning a member of
MSO_THEME_COLOR_INDEX to ColorFormat.theme_color
causes ColorFormat.type
to become MSO_COLOR_TYPE.THEME:
>>> font.color.type RGB [1] >>> font.color.theme_color = MSO_THEME_COLOR.ACCENT_2 >>> font.color.type THEME [2] >>> font.color.theme_color ACCENT_2 [6]
The ColorFormat.brightness
attribute can be used to select a tint or shade of a theme color. Assigning the value 0.1 produces a color 10% brighter [a tint]; assigning -0.1 produces a color 10% darker [a shade]:
>>> font.color.type None >>> font.color.brightness 0.0 >>> font.color.brightness = 0.4 ValueError: not a theme color >>> font.color.theme_color = MSO_THEME_COLOR.TEXT_1 >>> font.color.brightness = 0.4 >>> font.color.brightness 0.4
Specimen XML¶
Baseline paragraph with no font color:
Text with no color.
Paragraph with directly-applied RGB color:
Directly-applied color Blue.
Run with directly-applied theme color:
Theme color Accent 1.
Run with 40% tint of Text 2 theme color:
Theme color with 40% tint.
Run with 25% shade of Accent 2 theme color:
Theme color with 25% shade.