Using hexadecimal notation such as #ffd700, or rgb notation such as rgb(255,127,255), or rgb percentile notation such as rgb(25%,54%,86%), can be a drain on time and energy. Most of us are not used to typing characters such as (, ), #, comma signs, and numbers. The numerical names of colors do not in the mind identify with any particular color.

As a result we end up using colors much less than we otherwise would and less than would be warranted by given the ratio of what we accomplish compared to the effort inputted when we are using the appropriate technique. In the modern time, a quintessence of art is color in web pages yet the colors go unused. This despite the fact that this playing around with colors accords well with scriptural injunctions against making images of things found in nature.

What I call the mathematical colors are all the colors in which the red, green and blue values are either zero or zero percent, the maximum 255 or 100%, or half-way between zero and maximum at 127 or 128, 50%. There are 27 of these colors. Most of them have named color equivalents, thus a simple name such as red can be used in the CSS and Javascript, as opposed to the cumbersome, un-descriptive notational equivalents such as rgb(255,0,0), or rgb(100%,0%,0%), or #ff0000. For the colors that do not have exact named color equivalents, the named colors that are closest to the mathematically basic color is presented.

It is important to have an understanding of the mathematically basic colors; otherwise the coloring of the page can tend towards becoming unbalanced, with too much or too little attention paid to certain colors. Now that we have mathematical colors, it makes sense to take advantage of the math of the colors as a way of maintaining the artistry of the page.

At the bottom of the table in the bottom three rows, starting with 'silver', certain colors that are not mathematically basic are presented, along with their closest named color equivalents. Colors for metals are under-represented in the list of named colors so I emphasize them here, despite the difficulties involved in presenting such colors (metallic colors tend to be a mix of colors rather than just one color, use of gifs and jpegs are recommended for them).

Using this table, one can just copy and paste the color name from the input at the top, this makes coding a page easier.

The table allows one to see not just how various color texts look on various backgrounds, but also how various color borders look on various backgrounds.

Version 1 of this page presents what the 27 mathematically basic colors look like in various text and background combinations; in this version the closest named color equivalents are not presented, rather, the exact mathematically basic colors, are presented (example, for #7f00ff the exact color #7f00ff is presented, rather than the closest named equivalent which is 'darkviolet'.

Important Links:

This link is slow to load: Microsoft MSDN Color Table