Changing colorscheme in "translate" command

[Mark Davis]

I LOVE the "translate" command. I find fontsize(8) works best for 8.5x11 paper. I'd love to output in color. I see there isa parameter called "scheme" which is by default set to monochrome. What are the names for the color schemes? when I search all I find is the color schemes for graphs. I tried option scheme(color) to no avail.

[wbuchanan]

If you

help scheme

You can find out a bit more about scheme files in general and will also see how to determine the schemes available on your system. You can also use brewscheme to create your own customized scheme files and get access to a few other color/visualization related tools.

[Mark Davis]

Thank you for your help. I looked this article up before posting. These are schemes for graphs not log files. I am looking for schemes for log files. when I use these scheme names I get an error that the scheme is invalid.

[Friedrich Huebler]

I see there isa parameter called "scheme" which is by default set to monochrome.

Where do you see this? The word "scheme" does not appear in help translate.

[Carole J. Wilson]

@Freidrich Huebler - The manual entry [R translate] shows an example of available parameters for the smcl2ps translator: translator query smcl2ps , wherein we see scheme monochrome (as well as customizable colors).

[Friedrich Huebler]

Right, I have the same.

. translator query smcl2ps
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                header | on
            headertext | 
                  logo | on
                  user | 
           projecttext | 
             cmdnumber | on
-----------------------+-------------------------------------------------
              fontsize | 9                         lmargin | 1.00
              pagesize | letter                    rmargin | 1.00
             pagewidth | 8.50                      tmargin | 1.00
            pageheight | 11.00                     bmargin | 1.00
-----------------------+-------------------------------------------------
                scheme | monochrome
-----------------------+-------------------------------------------------
    cust1_result_color |   0   0   0    cust2_result_color |   0   0   0
  cust1_standard_color |   0   0   0  cust2_standard_color |   0   0   0
     cust1_error_color |   0   0   0     cust2_error_color | 255   0   0
     cust1_input_color |   0   0   0     cust2_input_color |   0   0   0
      cust1_link_color |   0   0   0      cust2_link_color |   0   0 255
    cust1_hilite_color |   0   0   0    cust2_hilite_color |   0   0   0
     cust1_result_bold | on              cust2_result_bold | on
   cust1_standard_bold | off           cust2_standard_bold | off
      cust1_error_bold | on               cust2_error_bold | on
      cust1_input_bold | off              cust2_input_bold | off
       cust1_link_bold | off               cust2_link_bold | off
     cust1_hilite_bold | on              cust2_hilite_bold | on
  cust1_link_underline | on           cust2_link_underline | on
cust1_hilite_underline | off        cust2_hilite_underline | off
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Mark Davis]

Yes exactly. There is even a way to pass values for scheme when you translate. I have tried "color" but it's not a valid option. can I create and save my own scheme to use later? Also I like to use font(8) so the full width of a terminal output can be displayed on 8.5 inch wide paper.

[wbuchanan]

It isn't completely clear how to identify which values can be modified or not. The width may also have to do with the line size in Stata as well.

[Mark Davis]

I am reasonably sure you can pass scheme() as an option because scheme(monochrome) works. What I am unsure of is that any other color schemes excist.

[Carole J. Wilson]

Ah ha! The syntax for translator set is:

translator set [tname setopt setval]

Therefore the following does change the scheme. I'll leave it to you to determine whether it actually changes the output.

translator set smcl2ps scheme color
translator query smcl2ps

*Yields:
. translator query smcl2ps
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                header | on
            headertext | 
                  logo | on
                  user | 
           projecttext | 
             cmdnumber | on
-----------------------+-------------------------------------------------
              fontsize | 9                         lmargin | 1.00
              pagesize | letter                    rmargin | 1.00
             pagewidth | 8.50                      tmargin | 1.00
            pageheight | 11.00                     bmargin | 1.00
-----------------------+-------------------------------------------------
                scheme | color
-----------------------+-------------------------------------------------
    cust1_result_color |   0   0   0    cust2_result_color |   0   0   0
  cust1_standard_color |   0   0   0  cust2_standard_color |   0   0   0
     cust1_error_color |   0   0   0     cust2_error_color | 255   0   0
     cust1_input_color |   0   0   0     cust2_input_color |   0   0   0
      cust1_link_color |   0   0   0      cust2_link_color |   0   0 255
    cust1_hilite_color |   0   0   0    cust2_hilite_color |   0   0   0
     cust1_result_bold | on              cust2_result_bold | on
   cust1_standard_bold | off           cust2_standard_bold | off
      cust1_error_bold | on               cust2_error_bold | on
      cust1_input_bold | off              cust2_input_bold | off
       cust1_link_bold | off               cust2_link_bold | off
     cust1_hilite_bold | on              cust2_hilite_bold | on
  cust1_link_underline | on           cust2_link_underline | on
cust1_hilite_underline | off        cust2_hilite_underline | off
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

[wbuchanan]

I'm not sure what exactly the "color" scheme would be in this case. There are a few different color schemes that come with Stata (e.g., s2color, s2gcolor, s1color, etc...) but none that a named color. If it uses the same specifications as a normal scheme file, then brewscheme could be used to generate custom scheme files if needed/wanted, but I'm not sure how reasonable a solution it would provide for this use case.

[Carole J. Wilson]

The scheme here refers to the colors displayed in a file translated, for example, from a smcl file to pdf. It is not the same as graphing schemes.

translator set smcl2pdf scheme monochrome
log using log_mono.smcl, smcl
noi di as error "This text will be BLACK in the mono-pdf"
log close
translate log_mono.smcl log_mono.pdf

translator set smcl2pdf scheme color
log using log_color.smcl, smcl
noi di as error "This text will show up as RED in the color-pdf"
log close
translate log_color.smcl log_color.pdf

If you compare these two pdf files, you can see the difference. **Caveat: This is on a Windows machine. There are notes about how the translator works for Mac & *nix, so YMMV.