Setting Text Color Dynamically

What is this page about?

This page explains how to set text color dynamically using template expressions.

You can set a font color for text contents dynamically using textColor tags. Syntax of a textColor tag is defined as follows.

<<textColor [color_expression]>>
content_to_be_colored
<</textColor>>

Note – A textColor tag can be used anywhere in a template document except charts.

An expression declared within an opening textColor tag defines a text font color to be applied during runtime. The expression must return a value of one of the following types:

• A string containing the name of a known color, that is, the case-insensitive name of a member of the KnownColor enumeration like in the following example.

    <<textColor [“red”]>>text with red font<</textColor>>
    
  

• A string containing an HTML color code like in the following example.

    <<textColor [“#F08080”]>>text with light coral font<</textColor>>
    
  

• An integer value defining RGB (red, green, blue) components of the color like in the following example.

    <<textColor [0xFFFF00]>>text with yellow font<</textColor>>
    
  

• A value of the Color type.

While building a report, an expression declared within an opening textColor tag is evaluated and text content between the tag and its corresponding closing tag is colored accordingly. The opening and closing textColor tags are removed then.

Note – Within a text block to be colored using a textColor tag, elements having a text font color already applied are not affected during runtime.

You can use textColor tags nested into each other. Also, you can normally use textColor tags within data bands and conditional blocks like in the following example.

Assume that you have the ColoredItem class defined in your application as follows.

public class ColoredItem
{
	public String Name { get { ... } }
	public String Description { get { ... } }
	public Color Color { get { ... } }
	...
}

Given that items is an enumeration of ColoredItem instances, you can use the following template to output every item into a separate paragraph, which text is colored dynamically.

<<foreach [item in items]>><<textColor [item.Color]>><<[item.Name]>><</textColor>>
<</foreach>>

To output every item into a separate table row, which text is colored dynamically, you can use the following template.

<<foreach [item in items]>><<textColor [item.Color]>><<[item.Name]>>

<<[item.Description]>><</textColor>><</foreach>>

Note – Start and end textColor tags can be located either in paragraphs of a single story (or table cell) or in rows of a single document table in the same way as foreach tags.

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FAQ

1. Q: What color value formats are accepted by the textColor tag?
   A: The tag accepts a string with a known color name (e.g., “Red”), a string with an HTML hex code (e.g., “#F08080”), an integer representing an RGB value (e.g., 0xFFFF00), or a .NET Color object.

2. Q: Can the textColor tag be used inside tables or across different cells of the same row?
   A: Yes. The opening and closing tags may appear in different cells of the same table row or in different paragraphs of the same story, just like foreach tags.

3. Q: What happens if the text already has a font color applied before the textColor tag is evaluated?
   A: Existing color attributes are left unchanged; the textColor tag only colors text that does not already have a color set.

4. Q: Is it possible to nest textColor tags or combine them with other template tags such as if or foreach?
   A: Absolutely. textColor tags can be nested and placed inside if, foreach, or any other conditional block. Each tag is evaluated independently at runtime.

5. Q: How can I pass a Color value from my data model to the textColor tag?
   A: Ensure the expression returns a System.Drawing.Color instance (e.g., item.Color). The tag will use that value directly to color the enclosed text.