- Specify a color using a hexadecimal value.
- Specify the color using the syntax
color="#RRGGBB"whereRRGGBBis a hexadecimal value for the amount of red (RR), green (GG) and blue (BB) in the desired color.The range for the specified value for
RR,GGandBBis 00 thru FF where 00 means no color and FF the maximum amount. This range corresponds with the decimal range 0 - 255.
So, the color FF0000 means bright red and 808080 is a medium gray. Specify a color using a color name.
- To simplify the use of colors, colornames were defined. This makes it
easier to use colors, because you don't have to know the
RRGGBBvalues, just the names. For examplecolor=black. Downside is that there's not a name for every possible color.
So, depending on which colors you want to use, you have to choose between using colornames and hexadecimal values. If you only use to the colors which have colornames for them defined, you could stick to the colornames. If you need full control over the colors you have to use the hexadecimal method.
Used colors versus graphics mode
If the graphics mode of a users computer supports 256 colors then not every
color that can be specified will be shown exactly as defined in the page.
The colors used in the page, not only for text but also in images, will be
dithered by the browser to a fixed palette. This means that the browser
replaces the colors that are not in the fixed palette by the closest
matching color in this palette.
If you want to avoid this dithering you should use only colors that are in
the Netscape palette.
