The Plotutils Package - Color Names

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# Specifying Colors by Name

Many of the plotting utilities allow colors to be specified by name. For example, `graph` supports the ``--frame-color'` option. The other graphics programs support the ``--pen-color'` option, and they all, including `graph` support the ``--bg-color'` option. The `libplot` library, on which the graphics programs are based, includes the `pencolorname`, `fillcolorname`, and `bgcolorname` functions.

In any of these contexts, 665 distinct color names are recognized, including obscure ones like "dark magenta", "forest green", and "olive drab". Color names are case-insensitive, and spaces are ignored. So, for example, "RosyBrown" is equivalent to "rosy brown", and "DarkGoldenrod3" to "dark goldenrod 3".

The file ``colors.txt'`, which is distributed along with the GNU plotting utilities, lists the available color names. On most systems it is installed in ``/usr/share/libplot'` or ``/usr/local/share/libplot'`. The color names are essentially those recognized by recent releases of the X Window System, which on most machines are listed in the file ``/usr/lib/X11/rgb.txt'`. However, for every color name containing the string "gray", a version containing "grey" has been included. For example, both "dark slate gray 4" and "dark slate grey 4" are recognized color names.

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