Change font in echo command Is it possible to change the font attributes of the output of echo in either zsh or bash? What I would like is something akin to: echo -n "This is the font: normal " echo -n $font=italic "italic," echo -n $font=bold "bold," echo -n "and" echo -n $font=small "small". so that it print: "This is the font: normal, _italic_ , **bold** , small" within a line of text.

On most if not all terminal emulators, you can't set different font sizes or different fonts, only colors and a few attributes (bold, underlined, standout).

In bash (or in zsh or any other shell), you can use the terminal escape sequences directly (apart from a few exotic ones, all terminals follow xterm's lead these days). `CSI` is `ESC `, written `$'\e['` in bash. The escape sequence to change attributes is `CSI Ps m`.


echo $'\e[32;1mbold red\e[0mplain\e[4munderlined'


Zsh has a [convenient function for that.


autoload -U colors
colors
echo $bold_color$fg[red]bold red${reset_color}plain$'\e['$color[underline]munderlined


Or can do it as part of _prompt expansion_ , also done with `print -P`, or the `%` _parameter expansion flag_ :


print -P '%F{red}%Bbold%b red%f %Uunderline%u'