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up vote 6 down vote favorite

I know that it is possible to obtain colored text in Latex by including the color package and writing like

\textcolor{red}{This is red text}

How could I define a macro which would produce text of a given color such as

\red{This is red text}

?

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2  
\newcommand\red[1]{\color{red}#1} isn't good enough? Why you don't want to use \textcolor, too verbose? Maybe the question actually was about defining own macros? If yes, then see e.g. LaTeX/Customizing LaTeX from LaTeX wikibook. – przemoc Jul 11 '11 at 18:35
1  
@przemoc: Your macro will switch to red color for every text following it, not only the macro's argument. Correct would be (e.g.) \newcommand\red[1]{{\color{red}#1}} (note the additional set of braces). – lockstep Jul 11 '11 at 18:40
@lockstep: Damn, right! Forgot about them... – przemoc Jul 11 '11 at 18:41

1 Answer

up vote 7 down vote accepted

\newcommand{\red}[1]{\textcolor{red}{#1}} works. Or are you trying to do something more general, such that \somecolorname{foo} behaves the same as \textcolor{somecolorname}{foo}? That latter case is probably not a good idea...

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3  
A \newcommand*{\red}{\textcolor{red}} is actually fine enough. There is no need to pass the argument around. Also \textcolor simply calls \color internally, so \newcommand\red[1]{{\color{red}#1}} would be more efficient. However I would go with \newcommand*\red{\color{red}}, then you can write {\red text} instead of \ref{text} and also use \red to switch to red for the rest of the group. – Martin Scharrer♦ Jul 11 '11 at 18:54
3  
@MartinScharrer, it's true that you can elide the argument. And it's more efficient TeX, too (actually, it's more efficient programming in nearly any language). On the other hand, it is slightly odd-looking and takes a bit of TeXpertise to understand a command definition that effectively takes one more invisible argument. So unless I need the subtly different semantics of leaving off the argument (because of brace groups), or really am worried about the efficiency, I tend to leave the argument in for clarity's sake. – Ben Lerner Jul 11 '11 at 19:02

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