The good old Windows Command Prompt has never been the prettiest of command-line tools, especially when compared to Linux and Mac terminals. Most of us think of the Command Prompt as a digital board with a basic white-on-black aesthetic reminiscent of the MS-DOS days. However, it doesn’t have to be that way. Indeed, you can change and customize Windows 10 command prompt colors and fonts by adding a much-needed splash of color.
Customize Command Prompt Color and Font in Windows 10
In this tutorial, you will learn how to change Windows 10 command prompt colors and font both temporarily (for the current session) and permanently. We’ll also show you how to undo these changes and revert to the default white-on-black look in case you don’t like what you see. So, without further ado, let’s see how we can customize the Command Prompt in Windows 10.
Customize command prompt color
- First, open the command prompt. For this, search for “cmd” in the Windows search bar and click on the “Command Prompt” option from the results.
- Now right-click on the top bar of the Command Prompt window and select “Properties”.
- In the Properties window, select the ‘colors’ tab [1] then choose the colors you want for the text and background using the pre-selected color options [2]. You can also enter your own RGB color combination [3] if you want.
- In the first case, I used the old-school green-on-black terminal look by selecting green text while keeping the background black. In the second screenshot, you’ll see we’ve reversed the default color scheme to achieve a black-on-white look very much like Notepad.
- Before the launch of the “Terminal” application in early 2019, Microsoft updated command prompt properties with an additional ‘Terminal’ tab as part of Windows 10 build 18298. It contains several new customization options for cursor and terminal color fields that allow you to specify RGB color values for foreground colors and / or default background. Check the boxes next to “Use separate foreground/background” to get started.
- These colors are independent of the color palette you choose in the “Color” tab. As you can see, I changed the fields to give my computer’s command prompt window a bright orange background with white text in the foreground.
Customize command prompt font
- Back in the Properties dialog, switch to the “Font” tab to change the characteristics of the font used in the Command Prompt. Here you can change the font, as well as the text size. You can also click the “Bold Fonts” checkbox to add a bit more weight to any font you choose.
You can play around with the settings and the different options to see what appeals to you.
Add a splash of color to the familiar Windows Command Prompt on your computer
So there you go folks! You now know how to customize the Windows Command Prompt on your Windows 10 computer. If PowerShell is your command line tool of choice and you want to customize it with custom fonts and colors, you should check out our tutorial on how to to change the Windows PowerShell color scheme in Windows 10. Of course, you can also try the Windows Terminal app (To download) if you frequently use command-line tools and shells such as Command Prompt, PowerShell, and WSL.
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