How to change the braces/parenthesis colors in Visual Studio

Question

I am not talking about the highlight colors but the actual colors. I got a color scheme with light background color but the braces/parentheses are barely visible. Anyone knows how to change this?

Btw this is for C# because C++ seems to color braces/parentheses using operator color.

grats on making the 8000th topic tagged C# :P – John T Jan 06 '09 at 22:44 — John T, Jan 06 '09 at 22:44
Thanks I didn't noticed that. :) – Joan Venge Jan 06 '09 at 22:48 — Joan Venge, Jan 06 '09 at 22:48

score 94 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 27 '14 at 23:57

94

The Visual Studio 2014 CTP 14.0.22129 dark theme blacked-out the brackets and semi-colon for some reason. I was able to fix this by changing the foreground color of the "Punctuation" display item.

answered Oct 27 '14 at 23:57

Beau Harder

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I had this problem in VS2013 after installing the Roslyn CTP. The punctuation display item was the culprit, thanks :) – Huron Nov 19 '14 at 09:57
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Thanks fixed same problem in VS 2015 CTP – Radenko Zec Mar 11 '15 at 11:10
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Also fixes same in VS 2015 RC – Geir-Tore Lindsve May 04 '15 at 07:57
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If you have the same issue in VS2015 but with `=` and `;` then you need to change the foreground color of "Operator" – Colin Bacon Nov 02 '15 at 09:31

score 28 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 10 '15 at 08:55

28

Tools > Options > Fonts and Colors > Display Items : Punctuation

answered Nov 10 '15 at 08:55

HamidReza

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score 14 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 09 '10 at 08:14

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I know this is an old already answered question but I found a solution that suited me at least.

Set the "Plain Text" colour to be the colour you want the braces to be then set the "Identifier" colour to be what you want the rest of the text to look like.

answered Jun 09 '10 at 08:14

John Hunter

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Just what I needed. Thanks! It really helps JavaScript syntax for Metro development. Otherwise way too many things are the default text color. Thanks again! – Chad Carter Jul 11 '12 at 20:39

score 8 · Answer 4 · answered May 16 '17 at 07:16

8

Visual Studio 2017 still has a problem to have black color as Default color in editor. Generally it's not, but it appeared to black by some reasons.

I changed below two items to Silver and press OK, and open Option again and back to Default it solved.

Tools > Options > Fonts and Colors > Display Items : Punctuation
Tools > Options > Fonts and Colors > Display Items : Operator

answered May 16 '17 at 07:16

Youngjae

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None of the other answers were working for me; changing both the foreground colour for Punctuation and Operator worked for me – Novastorm Jul 12 '17 at 11:13
I did an update and all the sudden logged in another day and my curly brackets and semi-colons were black on the dark-theme! Going to Tools > Options > Fonts and Colors > Display Items : Punctuation it was already light but I selected "Silver" as you said and Bam! Problem solved, thanks. – Anthony Griggs Jun 06 '20 at 14:16

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 06 '09 at 22:38

7

Tools > Options > Fonts and Colors > "Display Items" : Plain Text

Unfortunately this changes a lot more than just braces but its the only way to target them as far as I know.

answered Jan 06 '09 at 22:38

Andrew Hare

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I don't know what's going on with my VS but Plain Text is being overridden by some magical force that won't let me change it from white – Brandon May 03 '16 at 17:06
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Tools > Options > Fonts and Colors > Display Items : Punctuation, at least in VS 2015. Thanks @HamidReza. (I stole it from the answer below) – ra170 Mar 16 '17 at 19:48
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Correction, in `VS 2017` it is Tools > Options > Environment > Fonts and Colors > "Display Items" : "Brace Matching" – Robert Green MBA Nov 15 '18 at 21:49

dan31 · Answer 6 · 2019-11-13T01:25:05.487

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It is "Operator" for C++ (proof below), but "Punctuation" for C#. Change both.

edited Nov 13 '19 at 01:25

answered Nov 06 '19 at 17:13

dan31

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score 4 · Answer 7 · answered Mar 07 '15 at 07:20

To change item foreground and background colors in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate fallow this: Tools->Options->Environment->General->Fonts and Colors. This worked for me to change Brace Matching(Rectangle) from default color which was barley visible, to my own chosen color.

score 4 · Answer 8 · answered Nov 19 '17 at 21:03

4

I am using dark theme (not light), but I had a very similar problem. My parenthesis, braces and punctuations was black when I started my IDE today, making them just about impossible to see.

I tried to "default" the fonts and colors but that did not help. Neither did changing the settings for Plain Text, Braces or Punctuations.

However, changing from Dark to Light theme and then back to Dark again brought everything back to normal.

answered Nov 19 '17 at 21:03

Spiralis

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The colors of the braces, etc, broke for me after the installing an update. I tried everything, even importing my settings older settings that should have been correct. Nothing else was working for me at all, but this did the trick! – c0r3yz Sep 21 '18 at 16:09

Legends · Answer 9 · 2021-03-05T08:00:04.850

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VS 2017 <

The following instruction shows how to change the background color of the matching braces and its rectangles. Click on the picture and take a look at the braces in the source code!

Open Visual Studio --> Tools --> Options

To change the backgroundColor follow the steps in the picture below!

edited Mar 05 '21 at 08:00

answered Jun 15 '18 at 21:41

Legends

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score 3 · Answer 10 · answered May 10 '18 at 18:50

For anyone that is here and have the same problem with Visual C++, if you are using visual assist, just know that it overrides the punctuation color scheme mentioned by the others. You have to change the color in the Visual Assist options and set it to another color than black (which is the default color).

score 3 · Answer 11 · answered Jan 11 '19 at 06:57

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Here are extensions that will colorize paris of matching brackets in the same color:

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=CoenraadS.bracket-pair-colorizer-2

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=TomasRestrepo.Viasfora

answered Jan 11 '19 at 06:57

wip

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I've used Viasfora before, you need to disable some of it's features to get ONLY braces coloring, but it works well! – user230910 Jul 09 '19 at 01:08
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After installing it: Tools -> Options -> Viasfora -> Keyword Highlight, switch all to false. – user230910 Jul 09 '19 at 01:11
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Nothing like coming back to your comment a couple of weeks later :D – user230910 Jul 26 '19 at 09:49
https://viasfora.com/ is open source. – carloswm85 Dec 30 '21 at 23:40

score 2 · Answer 12 · answered Jan 06 '09 at 22:43

Bah, posted an answer and it got lost. FF and my proxy server aren't getting along.

I think there's no way to just change the color of the parens, they seems to follow the text color. I did find this tool that lets you do all sorts of things with paren color; looked pretty nifty for $49.

score 2 · Answer 13 · answered Dec 08 '17 at 21:43

You can change the Punctuation color in VS but it will actually change the color of all elements that fall in the Punctuation category.

If you want a solution which you can fine tune you can use the Semantic Highlighter Extension that we have developed. It can color different parts of code such as braces, brackets, parenthesis, angle brackets and even properties, fields, parameters, namespaces and more.

You can install it as a Visual Studio Extension. It is available in the gallery - just search for "Semantic Highlighter"

score 1 · Answer 14 · answered Nov 15 '18 at 21:50

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in VS 2017 it is Tools > Options > Environment > Fonts and Colors > "Display Items" : "Brace Matching"

answered Nov 15 '18 at 21:50

Robert Green MBA

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score 1 · Answer 15 · answered Mar 04 '21 at 17:01

In VS2019 - I changed the item below to Lime so that when your mouse is "on" a brace or paren it highlights the one you're on plus the matching brace/paren. The screen shot below shows what I changed and the affect on the braces of my if statement.

Tools > Options > Environment : Fonts and Colors > Display Items : Brace Matching

score 0 · Answer 16 · answered Mar 09 '17 at 16:24

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I have changed the color of Parenthesis, Curly Braces and semi-colon by selecting Tools > Options > Environment > Fonts and Colors > Display Items : Operator. Enjoy Coding :)

answered Mar 09 '17 at 16:24

Aashish

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score 0 · Answer 17 · answered Oct 24 '17 at 07:08

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To change the Matching Braces TOOLS>OPTIONS>FONTS AND COLORS
Under "Display Items" Select "Braces Matching(Rectangle)" to the color you want.

answered Oct 24 '17 at 07:08

Murali Krishna

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score 0 · Answer 18 · answered Jul 29 '20 at 10:42

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In VS2019 : Tools > Options > Fonts and Colors > Display Items : VA Brace Matching

answered Jul 29 '20 at 10:42

Yan Karlo Teixeira

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score 0 · Answer 19 · answered Jul 18 '22 at 15:26

it's a headache bug, happened with me after restarting my PC. the fastest way and the crossroad to fix it is by setting the theme to light them, they back to dark theme it fixed the problem fast.

tool-> options -> General -> light theme -> click ok

then

tool -> options -> General -> Dark theme -> click ok

it fix the color's distrubtions

score -1 · Answer 20 · answered Mar 06 '15 at 04:18

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Tools > Options > Fonts and Colors >DisplayItem(D:):Parenthesis matching (square brackets) but visual studio 2015 Preview can only changge javascript braces/parenthesis color , C# 貌似不行:(

answered Mar 06 '15 at 04:18

cary yuan

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score -1 · Answer 21 · answered Jan 06 '09 at 22:35

-1

As far as I have been able to find, you can't :-(

answered Jan 06 '09 at 22:35

Orion Edwards

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What about this [though][1]? [1]: http://allwrong.wordpress.com/2008/06/05/visual-studio-fonts-and-colors/ – Joan Venge Jan 06 '09 at 22:40
This was done by changing the "Plain Text" property - please see my post – Andrew Hare Jan 06 '09 at 22:45

How to change the braces/parenthesis colors in Visual Studio

21 Answers21