It’s possible to add color to data cells according to their values with the data_color() method. There is a multitude of ways to perform data cell colorizing here:
targeting: we can constrain which columns should receive the colorization treatment through the columns= argument)
color palettes: with palette= we could supply a list of colors composed of hexadecimal values or color names
value domain: we can either opt to have the range of values define the domain, or, specify one explicitly with the domain= argument
text autocoloring: data_color() will automatically recolor the foreground text to provide the best contrast (can be deactivated with autocolor_text=False)
Parameters
Name
Type
Description
Default
columns
SelectExpr
The columns to target. Can either be a single column name or a series of column names provided in a list.
None
rows
RowSelectExpr
In conjunction with columns=, we can specify which rows should be colored. By default, all rows in the targeted columns will be colored. Alternatively, we can provide a list of row indices.
None
palette
str | list[str] | None
The color palette to use. This should be a list of colors (e.g., ["#FF0000", "#00FF00", "#0000FF"]). A ColorBrewer palette could also be used, just supply the name (reference available in the Color palette access from ColorBrewer section). If None, then a default palette will be used.
None
domain
list[str] | list[int] | list[float] | None
The domain of values to use for the color scheme. This can be a list of floats, integers, or strings. If None, then the domain will be inferred from the data values.
None
na_color
str | None
The color to use for missing values. If None, then the default color ("#808080") will be used.
None
alpha
int | float | None
An optional, fixed alpha transparency value that will be applied to all color palette values.
None
reverse
bool
Should the colors computed operate in the reverse order? If True then colors that normally change from red to blue will change in the opposite direction.
False
autocolor_text
bool
Whether or not to automatically color the text of the data values. If True, then the text will be colored according to the background color of the cell.
The GT object is returned. This is the same object that the method is called on so that we can facilitate method chaining.
Color Palette Access From Colorbrewer And Viridis
All palettes from the ColorBrewer package can be accessed by providing the palette name in palette=. There are 35 available palettes:
Palette Name
Colors
Category
Colorblind Friendly
1
"BrBG"
11
Diverging
Yes
2
"PiYG"
11
Diverging
Yes
3
"PRGn"
11
Diverging
Yes
4
"PuOr"
11
Diverging
Yes
5
"RdBu"
11
Diverging
Yes
6
"RdYlBu"
11
Diverging
Yes
7
"RdGy"
11
Diverging
No
8
"RdYlGn"
11
Diverging
No
9
"Spectral"
11
Diverging
No
10
"Dark2"
8
Qualitative
Yes
11
"Paired"
12
Qualitative
Yes
12
"Set1"
9
Qualitative
No
13
"Set2"
8
Qualitative
Yes
14
"Set3"
12
Qualitative
No
15
"Accent"
8
Qualitative
No
16
"Pastel1"
9
Qualitative
No
17
"Pastel2"
8
Qualitative
No
18
"Blues"
9
Sequential
Yes
19
"BuGn"
9
Sequential
Yes
20
"BuPu"
9
Sequential
Yes
21
"GnBu"
9
Sequential
Yes
22
"Greens"
9
Sequential
Yes
23
"Greys"
9
Sequential
Yes
24
"Oranges"
9
Sequential
Yes
25
"OrRd"
9
Sequential
Yes
26
"PuBu"
9
Sequential
Yes
27
"PuBuGn"
9
Sequential
Yes
28
"PuRd"
9
Sequential
Yes
29
"Purples"
9
Sequential
Yes
30
"RdPu"
9
Sequential
Yes
31
"Reds"
9
Sequential
Yes
32
"YlGn"
9
Sequential
Yes
33
"YlGnBu"
9
Sequential
Yes
34
"YlOrBr"
9
Sequential
Yes
35
"YlOrRd"
9
Sequential
Yes
We can also use the viridis and associated color palettes by providing to palette= any of the following string values: "viridis", "plasma", "inferno", "magma", or "cividis".
Examples
The data_color() method can be used without any supplied arguments to colorize a table. Let’s do this with the exibble dataset:
from great_tables import GTfrom great_tables.data import exibbleGT(exibble).data_color()
num
char
fctr
date
time
datetime
currency
row
group
0.1111
apricot
one
2015-01-15
13:35
2018-01-01 02:22
49.95
row_1
grp_a
2.222
banana
two
2015-02-15
14:40
2018-02-02 14:33
17.95
row_2
grp_a
33.33
coconut
three
2015-03-15
15:45
2018-03-03 03:44
1.39
row_3
grp_a
444.4
durian
four
2015-04-15
16:50
2018-04-04 15:55
65100.0
row_4
grp_a
5550.0
five
2015-05-15
17:55
2018-05-05 04:00
1325.81
row_5
grp_b
fig
six
2015-06-15
2018-06-06 16:11
13.255
row_6
grp_b
777000.0
grapefruit
seven
19:10
2018-07-07 05:22
row_7
grp_b
8880000.0
honeydew
eight
2015-08-15
20:20
0.44
row_8
grp_b
What’s happened is that data_color() applies background colors to all cells of every column with the palette of eight colors. Numeric columns will use ‘numeric’ methodology for color scaling whereas string-based columns will use the ‘factor’ methodology. The text color undergoes an automatic modification that maximizes contrast (since autocolor_text=True by default).
We can target specific colors and apply color to just those columns. Let’s do that and also supply palette= values of "red" and "green".
With those options in place we see that only the numeric columns num and currency received color treatments. Moreover, the palette colors were mapped to the lower and upper limits of the data in each column; interpolated colors were used for the values in between the numeric limits of the two columns.
We can manually set the limits of the data with the domain= argument (which is preferable in most cases). Let’s colorize just the currency column and set domain=[0, 50]. Any values that are either missing or lie outside of the domain will be colorized with the na_color= color (so we’ll set that to "lightgray").