Colour and formatting codes: § codes, hex, and where each one still works
Section-sign codes still work in some places and are ignored in others. Here is the full table, the hex syntax that replaced them, and which contexts accept what.
There are three ways to colour text in Minecraft and they are not interchangeable. Using the wrong one for the context is why a sign renders §6 as literal characters.
The sixteen legacy codes
| Code | Colour | Code | Colour |
|---|---|---|---|
§0 | black | §8 | dark grey |
§1 | dark blue | §9 | blue |
§2 | dark green | §a | green |
§3 | dark aqua | §b | aqua |
§4 | dark red | §c | red |
§5 | dark purple | §d | light purple |
§6 | gold | §e | yellow |
§7 | grey | §f | white |
Plus formatting: §k obfuscated, §l bold, §m strikethrough, §n underline, §o italic, §r reset.
§r resets everything, colour and formatting together. There is no way to remove only bold — you reset and reapply the colour.
Where § codes work
| Context | § codes |
|---|---|
server.properties MOTD | ✅ |
| Book and quill (manually typed) | ❌ |
| Anvil renaming | ❌ in vanilla |
| Signs (typed in-game) | ❌ |
/tellraw and JSON text | ❌ — use the color field |
| Item names set by command | ❌ — use JSON |
| Most plugins | ✅, often with & instead of § |
The pattern: anything typed by a player is literal; anything set by a command uses JSON. Plugins accept &6 and translate it, which is why a plugin config looks different from a vanilla one.
Hex replaced the palette
JSON text components take any colour:
{ "text": "Custom", "color": "#FF8800" }Sixteen colours became sixteen million. The named colours still work and are shorter, so "color": "gold" is fine where #FFAA00 would do.
Hex does not work in § form in vanilla. Some servers support §x§F§F§8§8§0§0 — that is a Spigot extension, not vanilla behaviour, and it fails on a vanilla client.
Typing the section sign
§ is U+00A7. Options:
- Copy it from somewhere
Alt+21on Windows numpad- Most plugins let you write
&and convert
In server.properties the file is escaped Unicode, so the MOTD line often reads §6 rather than §6. Both are the same character.
Unicode symbols in names
Signs, books and item names accept any Unicode, which is how servers get ✦ ✧ ❖ ➤ ★ into names. There is no code to type them — they are pasted as characters. Anything in the font's coverage renders; anything outside it becomes a missing-glyph box.
Click to copy any colour code or Unicode symbol, and see which contexts accept it, in the Symbols & Color Code Reference.