Is there a way to print out colorized/highlighted text in cmd using python?

Question

I tried to colorized my text in cmd using the code below, but it does not.

`def highlight(colour, text):
    if colour == "black":
        return "\033[1;40m" + str(text) + "\033[1;m"
    if colour == "red":
        return "\033[1;41m" + str(text) + "\033[1;m"
    if colour == "green":
        return "\033[1;42m" + str(text) + "\033[1;m"
    if colour == "yellow":
        return "\033[1;43m" + str(text) + "\033[1;m"
    if colour == "blue":
        return "\033[1;44m" + str(text) + "\033[1;m"
    if colour == "magenta":
        return "\033[1;45m" + str(text) + "\033[1;m"
    if colour == "cyan":
        return "\033[1;46m" + str(text) + "\033[1;m"
    if colour == "gray":
        return "\033[1;47m" + str(text) + "\033[1;m"
    return str(text)

print(highlight("black", "Highlight: black"))
print(highlight("red", "Highlight: red"))
print(highlight("green", "Highlight: green"))
print(highlight("yellow", "Highlight: yellow"))
print(highlight("blue", "Highlight: blue"))
print(highlight("magenta", "Highlight: magenta"))
print(highlight("cyan", "Highlight: cyan"))
print(highlight("gray", "Highlight: gray"))

This is the Output:

←[1;40mHighlight: black←[1;m
←[1;41mHighlight: red←[1;m
←[1;42mHighlight: green←[1;m
←[1;43mHighlight: yellow←[1;m
←[1;44mHighlight: blue←[1;m
←[1;45mHighlight: magenta←[1;m
←[1;46mHighlight: cyan←[1;m
←[1;47mHighlight: gray←[1;m`

Do you guys have any idea how to colorized/hightlight text without using any non-built in imports (eg. colorama)?

Answer 1

You need to make sure to enable ENABLE_VT_PROCESSING before using escape sequences. You can do that with the following snippet:

# Turns VT output support on
def enable_vt_support():
    if os.name == 'nt':
        import ctypes
        hOut = ctypes.windll.kernel32.GetStdHandle(-11)
        out_modes = ctypes.c_uint32()
        ENABLE_VT_PROCESSING = ctypes.c_uint32(0x0004)
        # ctypes.addressof()
        ctypes.windll.kernel32.GetConsoleMode(hOut, ctypes.byref(out_modes))
        out_modes = ctypes.c_uint32(out_modes.value | 0x0004)
        ctypes.windll.kernel32.SetConsoleMode(hOut, out_modes)

Just call that once at the top of your script.