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Andrey “Rarst” Savchenko —  — Software — color, read, text, w3c

Use Colour Contrast Analyzer to ensure text is readable

colour_contrast_analyzer_icon People have very different preferences about color schemes comfortable for reading. However they rarely use options (like read-enhancing bookmarklets) to actively change colors. If you are making site, presentation, document or whatever else that has text – you want to use easy to read color scheme for it.

Colour Contrast Analyzer is excellent utility to check text to background contrast and see if it passes legibility recommendations.

What it does

Contrast Analyzer allows to pick foreground and background color and runs them against W3C recommendation for contrast ratio.

colour_contrast_analyzer_interface

It automatically does all calculations and generates preview for normal and large text sizes.

Strong features

  • multiply ways to input colors (palette, hex code, color picker);
  • set of hotkeys for fast operation;
  • additional calculation to account for color-blindness;
  • preview and image generation for visual impairments.

Overall

App is very convenient for basic checking and creating color schemes for text but also has impressive additional functions for deep accessibility checks. Must have for working with any text that strays from black on white. Freeware and completely portable.

Home&download http://www.paciellogroup.com/resources/contrast-analyser.html

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4 Comments

  • Lyndi #

    Doing these contrast checks might seem like yet another job but it is definitely worth it in the end. By doing this you assist a lot of people who suffer from color blindness. Who knows, the next visitor to your blog might be color blind!

  • Rarst #

    @Lyndi I am not a big believer in "prepare for everything" but even sticking with basic contrast check would save from using unreadable color schemes. :)

  • Julien@Front End Developer Bangkok #

    Thanks for the tip! This is something I don't usually do. Most of the time, I pick up color scheme from kuler.

  • Peter Drinnan #

    Here is a new one that lets you save your samples as a PDF. http://contrastchecker.com/