What is an SGR escape sequence?

Select Graphic Rendition (SGR) is the ANSI/ECMA-48 escape sequence family that controls terminal text styling, form ESC[ m. This tool generates the foreground-color subset: codes 30-37 for the 8 standard colors, optionally combined with 1 for bold, e.g. ESC[1;31m for bold red.

Is the output the real ESC control character, or just text describing it?

The real thing: the output string actually contains the ESC (0x1B) control byte, not a printable placeholder like the literal text "\x1B". That's what makes it directly usable if you paste it into a terminal or a program that writes it to one; a text description wouldn't render as color anywhere.

How is this different from ANSI to ASCII Converter?

This tool goes the opposite direction: it starts from plain ASCII and adds an ANSI color wrapper. ANSI to ASCII Converter starts from ANSI-colored text and strips the escape codes back out to recover the plain ASCII underneath.

Why only 8 colors and not the 256-color or truecolor palettes?

The 8 standard SGR foreground codes (30-37) are the original, universally-supported ANSI color set defined by ECMA-48, understood by essentially every terminal ever made. The 256-color and 24-bit truecolor extensions are real but newer and less universally supported, so this tool sticks to the guaranteed-compatible base set.

ASCII to ANSI Converter - Wrap Text in a Real SGR Color Escape

Overview

Introduction

Terminal output gets color and boldness from ANSI SGR escape sequences, short control-character prefixes that tell a terminal how to render the text that follows.

This tool builds one of those sequences for you: pick a standard foreground color, optionally bold, and it wraps your strict-ASCII text in the real escape bytes, ready to paste into a terminal, log line, or ANSI-aware output stream.

What Is ASCII to ANSI Converter?

A generator for ANSI SGR foreground-color escape sequences: ESC[<code>m<text>ESC[0m, where <code> is one of the 8 standard color codes (30-37), optionally prefixed with 1; for bold.

It only wraps strict 7-bit ASCII input, validated the same way as every other tool in this category, since ANSI escape sequences are themselves built from ASCII control and printable characters.

How ASCII to ANSI Converter Works

The input text is validated against the 0-127 ASCII range using this category's shared strict-ASCII validator before anything else happens.

The chosen color code (and bold flag, if set) are assembled into the SGR parameter string, then the real ESC (0x1B) byte is used to build ESC[<params>m<text>ESC[0m, the reset sequence at the end returning the terminal to its default styling.

When To Use ASCII to ANSI Converter

Use it to generate a ready-to-use colored terminal string for a script, log formatter, or CLI tool, without hand-typing escape codes.

It's also useful for understanding exactly what bytes a "colored terminal text" library is actually emitting under the hood.

Often used alongside ANSI to ASCII Converter and ASCII to HTML Entities Converter.

Features

Advantages

Produces the real ESC control byte, directly usable in a terminal or ANSI-aware program, not just a textual description.
Covers the 8 universally-supported standard foreground colors plus bold, the safest subset for broad terminal compatibility.
Shows a rendered preview alongside the raw escaped text, so you can see the intended color before using it.

Limitations

Only supports foreground color and bold; background colors, underline, and other SGR attributes aren't covered.
Only the 8 standard colors (30-37) are supported, not the 256-color or 24-bit truecolor extensions.
The on-page color preview uses approximate CSS colors for readability; actual rendered color varies by terminal and color scheme.

Examples

Wrapping text in red

Input

Error: build failed

Output

\x1B[31mError: build failed\x1B[0m

Shown here with a visible "\x1B" notation for readability; the actual output contains the real ESC (0x1B) control byte, not this literal text.

Wrapping text in bold green

Input

Build succeeded

Output

\x1B[1;32mBuild succeeded\x1B[0m

The bold flag adds "1;" before the color code (32 for green), matching how terminals combine multiple SGR attributes in one sequence.

Best Practices & Notes

Best Practices

Stick to the 8 standard colors for output that needs to work reliably across many different terminal emulators and color schemes.
Always keep the trailing reset sequence (ESC[0m) intact, dropping it leaves the terminal stuck in the chosen color for everything printed afterward.

Developer Notes

The 8 color options are a fixed lookup table of {code, name, previewHex} used both to render the color-picker buttons and the preview swatch; the preview colors are an approximate CSS palette for on-page display only, not part of the ANSI standard itself. The actual escape sequence is built with the real "\x1b" JavaScript string escape (the genuine ESC byte, 0x1B), not a display placeholder.

ASCII to ANSI Converter Use Cases

Generating a colored status line for a CLI tool or build script
Producing test fixtures for code that parses or strips ANSI color codes
Understanding exactly what escape bytes a terminal color library emits

Common Mistakes

Forgetting the reset sequence at the end, which leaves subsequent terminal output stuck in the chosen color.
Expecting the on-page preview color to exactly match every terminal's rendering; actual terminal color schemes vary.

Tips

Copy the raw output directly into a script that writes to a terminal (e.g. via echo -e in bash) to see the real color rendered.
Pair with ANSI to ASCII Converter to confirm stripping the escape codes back out recovers your original text exactly.

ASCII to ANSI Converter