Your hex editor should color-code bytes

The first example is “go ahead, try to find the single C0 in these bytes” and then argues one should highlight C0 bytes.

If that’s true, how does the tool know I will be looking for C0 bytes and not for 03, D3, etc? The logical conclusion of that would be that the hex editor should uniquely color code every byte. And following the other examples even that’s not enough.

The proposed solution is to create groups of byte values that each get their unique color. I think that helps, but we can do better: add a search feature. That tells your editor what you are looking for. Once you enter a search string, it can highlight all hits.

Yes, “colorful output in a hexdump is useful for the same reason that syntax highlighting for code is useful”, but do you know what syntax highlighting needs? Knowledge of the expected content of a file. Without that, a hex editor at best can guess at how to color-code stuff.

IMO, if you want to add syntax coloring to a hex editor, give it pluggable syntax coloring and heuristics for deciding which one to use when.

While at it, also let those plugins control where to break lines, whether to show hex at all (why show it at all if a file has a few paragraphs of English text or an array of IEEE doubles?), etc.

Those plug-ins will make errors and sometimes, users will want to see all byte values, so you’ll need a way for the user to override them.

Everything should try do some basic syntax highlighting IMO. Not too much, or it just becomes a sea of formatting that doesn't help at all. It is surprising how much difference just a little splash of colour can make if it isn't overdone. If possible, always include configuration options for the user though, so those with colour-blindness issues can tweak things to their needs, those who are just fussy can make the output fit with their finely adjusted system-wide colour schemes¹, and even better, where you can, allow bold/italic/other as well as colours so that those who barely see colour at all can play too.

Of course none of this helps those using screen-readers and other tech, so make sure that all your fancy colouring & such is additive so if it is all “lost” no meaning is absolutely lost with it.

--------

[1] Some people can be very vocal about this, more so than if highlighting isn't possible at all. If you give any output formatting they'll expect you to match, or be able to be made to match, their preferred style.

For anyone who regularly has to look at/analyze binary files, i highly recommend ImHex [1].

Its a hex editor built with imgui and has a lot of built in tools. Imo the best feature is the data structure editor. You can write a data type definition similar to C and it overlays it on the hexdump and parses it in a structured way while you type.

It also has a node based editor.

1: https://github.com/WerWolv/ImHex

Why did author decide that best way to demonstrate his idea would be by cutting contrast in half?

color-coding might be a great solution, but you don't really know beforehand which byte values are important. Manually selecting C0 to make it stand out it just ctrl+f with extra steps. (But I wouldn't mind something like "color 00 separate from ascii separate from the rest)

When you're going to color-code bytes in a hex dump, I would expect each ASCII character in the right column to have the same color as the hex byte in the left column, making it easier to pair them. I wonder why that wasn't done here.

> having more colors makes it possible to recognize more complex patterns

The implicit cost here is that the simple patterns become harder to recognize when every byte is only subtly differently colored. Rather than give everything a different color, I'd rather have the important stuff highlighted.

In the comparisons given, I think hexyl's highlighting scheme is significantly more useful.

  > Your hex editor should colour-code bytes so it is easier for users to distinguish patterns
  > Article is fully in lowercase, which makes it harder for readers to make out sentences and the flow of the article
  > mfw the irony

I get the idea but those specific examples are awful - not enough contrast.

I used to use wxHexEditor and that had a feature where I could select a section of the file and highlight it in a color. When I was working to decode a certain file format, I used that to color-code different sections of the file and it was super useful. Those color-codes were stored in a separate file so you could load them back in.

Emacs's hexl-mode does this, incidentally, though annoyingly by default it makes all faces the same color. I never understood why it defines the faces but then doesn't customize them.

What a bad way to illustrate your point by using such similar looking pastel colours

This article made me think how I could use similar techinques to colour code the data in database tables. Has anyone here tried that and has some recommendations where to start, etc.?

ImHex (https://imhex.werwolv.net/) is also a really nice Hex editor with tons of plugins (patterns, file support, etc.) and even an embedded language for adding more patterns easily

That said, even colored these dumps still feels unappealing to me — so yes this is admittedly subjective gut jumping in the conversation. I get that occult form can also be an attractive force.

The post put on the table an interesting point about how to improve the presentation layer to fit what’s human cognition is good at spotting (in general, or at least for the expected audience with some training). And it does start proposing something with these color schemes. But isn’t it kind of missing the forest for the tree? Actually why do we even have rendering with [012345678ABCDEF], when a specific set of (colored/imaged?) glyphs would be able to make more obvious what’s on the table? Or even beyond the hexadecimal grouping, wouldn’t be more relevant to render something "intuitively" far more easy to grap without several layer of internalized interpretation through acculturation?

My hex editor should let me turn syntax highlighting on and off; follow my personal color theme (and not produce light gray on white in the terminal); and let me highlight specific things I'm searching for like OD OA or FF FE.

I think semantic coloring (based on structure) is more useful. Also (can't help as someone working with z/OS), if you really want to make hex output readable, I recommend using big-endian machine.

I wonder how hard it would be to color code repeating sequences

To me the random colors at each byte is messing up with my brain making it hard to fast identify C0 or any other value that I could more easily identify in all black.

But color would be nice more based on the bytes logic.

Eventually the 00 in a shaded grey instead of black, and in best case scenario by logic unit based on your protocol. And worst case scenario by groups of words or so.

I really like hexyl [1], which does this by default.

https://github.com/sharkdp/hexyl

If you analyze binary files often, I highly recommend binvis - http://binvis.io/. It creates a colored minimap for files it loads and has two available arrangements. Pixel color is based on range of bytes, eg ASCII/null bytes/FF bytes. Besides, it’s a pretty basic hex viewer that runs in your browser. The minimap is extremely powerful for identifying interesting areas and patterns in unknown data.

When I read this article a few days ago it inspired me to create my own hex viewer : https://ar-ms.me/thoughts/3sl-a-sweet-hex-utility/

The cool thing about it imo (outside of colors) is a `--windows` flag. Which separates the hex view into partitions: so `-w 2:-3:5` shows the first two bytes on a line, then skips three bytes, then shows the next 5 bytes on a line, then the rest of the file. Easy to use combined with a terminal's up arrow.

I've started doing this with hashes in a CLI I'm working on. For slow prints, it's somewhat helpful https://asciinema.org/a/aD38Pk88CZgSZqtq but for debug dumps with many many hashes it really helps readability and tracking hashes across lines.

radare2 also has excellent hex viewing/editing support, if one manages to grok the usage of it.

> it’s much easier to pick out the unique byte when it’s a different color! human brains are really good at spotting visual patterns—given the right format

Don't really see the advantage. Unique bytes have no unique meaning across data types.

The only good syntax highlight to me is 00 and perhaps FF. But that's my opinion of course.

Anything else that has no direct relation to what you're looking at is meaningless.

I actually stopped reading after the intro because I fundamentally disagreed with its premise. The "find the C0" took me about 1/4 second with uncoloured. Looking at the coloured took my eyes about 3 seconds to recover from the colour overload, then I was scanning down and found the colours so distracting with the constant switching between orange, pink and yellows than it took me a total of about 5 seconds to scan down as far as the blue C0. Maybe if it was all uncoloured and blue just for that, I might have actually noticed it looking different earlier.

It's been a while since I used hexedit on Linux, but I think that highlighted search results in reverse colours, just like less does for text search. Personally, I'd prefer that to colours.

I think semantic coloring (based on structure) is more useful. Also (can't help as someone working with z/OS), if you really want to make hex output readable, I recommend using big-endian machine.

When I read this article a few days ago it inspired me to create my own hex viewer : https://ar-ms.me/thoughts/3sl-a-sweet-hex-utility/

Emacs's hexl-mode does this, incidentally, though annoyingly by default it makes all faces the same color. I never understood why it defines the faces but then doesn't customize them.

What exactly does it do? I'm looking at hexl-mode sources in my Emacs, and I see it defining only two faces - hexl-address-region and hexl-ascii-region.

This article made me think how I could use similar techinques to colour code the data in database tables. Has anyone here tried that and has some recommendations where to start, etc.?

DataGrip (and Pycharm by extension) lets you apply heatmap colors to dataframes and database tables: https://www.jetbrains.com/help/datagrip/tables-view-data.htm...

Another option would be to load data in pandas and display it in a Jupyter notebook with style.background_gradient()

Polars delegate styling to Great Tables, but it's also doable there: https://posit-dev.github.io/great-tables/get-started/coloriz...

That said, even colored these dumps still feels unappealing to me — so yes this is admittedly subjective gut jumping in the conversation. I get that occult form can also be an attractive force.

I can't think of anything better than a hex dump for representing raw binary data. I don't mean that there are no others, equally good representations, but hex dumps win because of familiarity.

Of course, if you know about the format, there are better ways, but it goes beyond the scope of a hex editor, though the most advanced ones support things like template files and can display structured data, disassembly, etc...

> Actually why do we even have rendering with [012345678ABCDEF], when a specific set of (colored/imaged?) glyphs would be able to make more obvious what’s on the table?

Most of us have internalized the relationship between digits in [0-9] for a very long time. Adding 6 more glyphs after that is quite easy (and they're also somewhat well known in the world), and after a while you stop even thinking about the glyphs consciously anyway. A hex 'C' intuitively means to me '4 from the end'. A hex 'F' intuitively means to me 'all 4 bits are set to 1'. I don't see any advantage to switching to a different glyph set for this base, other than disruption for disruption's sake.

> Or even beyond the hexadecimal grouping, wouldn’t be more relevant to render something "intuitively" far more easy to grap without several layer of internalized interpretation through acculturation?

Modern computers deal with 8-bit bytes, and their word sizes are a multiple of bytes - unless you're dealing with bit-packed data, which is comparatively rare (closest is bit twiddling of MMIO registers, which is when you sometimes switch to binary; although for a 4-bit hex nibble you can still learn arbitrary combinations of bits on/off into its value).

This means you can group 8 bits into 1 digits of 8 bits as one glyph (alphabet too large to be useful), 2 digits of 4 (hex), 4 digits of 2 (alphabet too small to give a benefit over binary) and 8 digits of 1 (binary). Hex just works really well as a practical middle ground.

Back when computers used 12 bit words (PDP-8 and friends) octal (4 digits of 3 bits represented in the 0-7 alphabet) was more popular.

I really like hexyl [1], which does this by default.

https://github.com/sharkdp/hexyl

The author uses hexyl as an example of trying, but not doing it right.

The first example is “go ahead, try to find the single C0 in these bytes” and then argues one should highlight C0 bytes.

IMO, if you want to add syntax coloring to a hex editor, give it pluggable syntax coloring and heuristics for deciding which one to use when.

While at it, also let those plugins control where to break lines, whether to show hex at all (why show it at all if a file has a few paragraphs of English text or an array of IEEE doubles?), etc.

Those plug-ins will make errors and sometimes, users will want to see all byte values, so you’ll need a way for the user to override them.

I don't think that's quite the point that example was intended to illustrate. The idea is not the you're looking for C0 bytes or any other kinds of bytes in particular, but rather that it's easier to fish out unique and interesting information in a sea of noise when you have color-coded bytes: like the fact that there's a conspicuous lonely C0 or some other value or series of values that stand out.

  > Your hex editor should colour-code bytes so it is easier for users to distinguish patterns
  > Article is fully in lowercase, which makes it harder for readers to make out sentences and the flow of the article
  > mfw the irony

The text smashed up to the left border doesn't help either.

For anyone who regularly has to look at/analyze binary files, i highly recommend ImHex [1].

It also has a node based editor.

1: https://github.com/WerWolv/ImHex

Of course none of this helps those using screen-readers and other tech, so make sure that all your fancy colouring & such is additive so if it is all “lost” no meaning is absolutely lost with it.

--------

I get the idea but those specific examples are awful - not enough contrast.

> having more colors makes it possible to recognize more complex patterns

In the comparisons given, I think hexyl's highlighting scheme is significantly more useful.

ImHex (https://imhex.werwolv.net/) is also a really nice Hex editor with tons of plugins (patterns, file support, etc.) and even an embedded language for adding more patterns easily

Does it do color highlighting by value of hex bytes, though?

But does it have colors!?!??!

I'd recommend for every developer to get one or more colourblind friends. I have some, and regularly send them screenshots of what I'm working on to get feedback what they can see and what they can read/can't read.

They've been absolutely invaluable for making sure their kind of people can't use my apps properly.

As long as you just give people list of settings for colors, they can pick as much color or monochrome as they want.

So by all means "color everything", people have different opinions on what they want colored so give them option

> Everything should try do some basic syntax highlighting IMO.

Interesting idea. So even syntax–highlighting natural language. Grammar highlighting, as it were. Prepositions, verbs, question marks, etc. An LLM could do it. Would it actually improve readability though? Seems likely!

Why did author decide that best way to demonstrate his idea would be by cutting contrast in half?

> Manually selecting C0 to make it stand out

That's not what they did, actually. C0 is the only byte in there that's above 3F or so, and it's far from it. Hence the very different colour, and the lack of contrast between the colours of the other bytes.

What a bad way to illustrate your point by using such similar looking pastel colours

To me the random colors at each byte is messing up with my brain making it hard to fast identify C0 or any other value that I could more easily identify in all black.

But color would be nice more based on the bytes logic.

Eventually the 00 in a shaded grey instead of black, and in best case scenario by logic unit based on your protocol. And worst case scenario by groups of words or so.

I wonder how hard it would be to color code repeating sequences

radare2 also has excellent hex viewing/editing support, if one manages to grok the usage of it.

The text smashed up to the left border doesn't help either.

Does it do color highlighting by value of hex bytes, though?

Ironically, my complaint about the article was that the author apparently only uses typical human vision ranges here, rather than mapping 00..FFh onto an OKlab gradient of hue 0..359° that rewards those few of us with impeccable color fidelity with even better highlighting than most can see :) No doubt there’s value in contentful highlighting but I’d rather just have a straight hue translation on the circle at a fixed luminosity. There’s only 256 hues to discern, after all! And what a pleasure it would be to learn to read hex code by hue alone :D

It's been a while since I used hexedit on Linux, but I think that highlighted search results in reverse colours, just like less does for text search. Personally, I'd prefer that to colours.

Agree. This is what indentation and brackets, etc. are for. So much color makes it a clown car image to wade through.

> it’s a pretty basic hex viewer that runs in your browser

excuse me? "basic" and "runs in your browser" together sound very contradictory to me. while doing things i actually feel (yes, emotionally) much better when there is no browser open on my machine, but only text editors, vcs gui and file managers, and terminals of course. and sometimes i reject an idea to start a browser just thinking how much ram it will take (ha, what a progress we have done - one github issue tab, with text only and no images, takes 180mb of ram).

> it’s much easier to pick out the unique byte when it’s a different color! human brains are really good at spotting visual patterns—given the right format

Don't really see the advantage. Unique bytes have no unique meaning across data types.

The only good syntax highlight to me is 00 and perhaps FF. But that's my opinion of course.

Anything else that has no direct relation to what you're looking at is meaningless.

> The only good syntax highlight to me is 00 and perhaps FF. But that's my opinion of course.

Would probably make the most sense to have various ranges you can enable depending on what you’re looking for (or to look for patterns) e.g. for single byte coloration I could see

- nul

- printable / non-printable ascii

- non-ascii

- UTF8 leading / continuation

- separators

- start/end pairs (both printable and non printable)

It would be interesting to do a heat map coloring based on frequency of that value.

Exactly - though the writing style buries the lede until the end; the recommendation is to have at least a different color for each of the first nibbles (e.g, 0x is one color, 1x another). As a minimum that makes some outliers pop out. He then has other recommendations like highlighting the ASCII range, etc.

As a note, the some up there is load-bearing - color may lull you into complacency where the difference between 01 and 0F is major and important but not highlighted. More complicated regex built color tools designed to highlight "anomalies" could be developed but then you need to define what anomalies are (patters, places where a pattern changes, etc).

I can't think of anything better than a hex dump for representing raw binary data. I don't mean that there are no others, equally good representations, but hex dumps win because of familiarity.

What exactly does it do? I'm looking at hexl-mode sources in my Emacs, and I see it defining only two faces - hexl-address-region and hexl-ascii-region.

The author uses hexyl as an example of trying, but not doing it right.

But does it have colors!?!??!

DataGrip (and Pycharm by extension) lets you apply heatmap colors to dataframes and database tables: https://www.jetbrains.com/help/datagrip/tables-view-data.htm...

Another option would be to load data in pandas and display it in a Jupyter notebook with style.background_gradient()

Polars delegate styling to Great Tables, but it's also doable there: https://posit-dev.github.io/great-tables/get-started/coloriz...

As long as you just give people list of settings for colors, they can pick as much color or monochrome as they want.

So by all means "color everything", people have different opinions on what they want colored so give them option

> Actually why do we even have rendering with [012345678ABCDEF], when a specific set of (colored/imaged?) glyphs would be able to make more obvious what’s on the table?

Back when computers used 12 bit words (PDP-8 and friends) octal (4 digits of 3 bits represented in the 0-7 alphabet) was more popular.

I thought about a similar concept for fun - each hex digit was replaced by 4x4 pixel matrix, where amount of pixels roughly corresponded to the value. So dot for 0, two dots for 1, checkerboard for 8 etc.

Then byte was represented as 16x16 matrix where each 4x4 area had the lower digit pattern, and these were arranged in the shape of the higher digit.

But at the end of the day, it wasn't really more readable.

They've been absolutely invaluable for making sure their kind of people can't use my apps properly.

8% of the male population has some form of colorblindness (for women it’s around 0.5%). I have deuteranomaly colorblindness. If you search for images on the internet related to that type of colorblindness you’ll find representations of how we see color and how we see the world.

It is not a fun condition to have, and leads to lots of problems in my everyday life. This blog post accidentally accentuated that issue, since the colors are (to what I can understand) very similar looking to me as a colorblind person.

1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women go through the same sorts of experiences, and it’s worth it, if you aren’t color deficient, to try out some of the colorblindness sites and see the world as we do.

https://www.colourblindawareness.org/colour-blindness/colour...

For sure, but if you don't have any friends, don't discount the value of using tools such as CoBlis:

https://www.color-blindness.com/coblis-color-blindness-simul...

.. to get an idea of the impact of your UI design on color-limited folks out there ..

I used this a few times to great effect, it was very revealing to see that my carefully selected teals and ambers were incomprehensible to some folks I really wanted to use my apps .. didn't take much iteration to come to a happy palette though, just needed a bit of care.

> Everything should try do some basic syntax highlighting IMO.

I don't even seen the paragraphs anymore, just sentence diagrams!

Here's Claud attacking your post:

http://schnecke.bombcar.com/random/sentence_diagram.png

I think that's a good idea, altho you can probably get away with good old NLP to do it.

> Manually selecting C0 to make it stand out

> The only good syntax highlight to me is 00 and perhaps FF. But that's my opinion of course.

Would probably make the most sense to have various ranges you can enable depending on what you’re looking for (or to look for patterns) e.g. for single byte coloration I could see

- nul

- printable / non-printable ascii

- non-ascii

- UTF8 leading / continuation

- separators

- start/end pairs (both printable and non printable)

Agree. This is what indentation and brackets, etc. are for. So much color makes it a clown car image to wade through.

The old disparaging term was “angry fruit salad”: <http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/A/angry-fruit-salad.htm...>

> it’s a pretty basic hex viewer that runs in your browser

It would be interesting to do a heat map coloring based on frequency of that value.

It's basic bause it does like two things. It's not advanced or complex. HN is also a basic forum, even though it runs in a browser.

Then byte was represented as 16x16 matrix where each 4x4 area had the lower digit pattern, and these were arranged in the shape of the higher digit.

But at the end of the day, it wasn't really more readable.

1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women go through the same sorts of experiences, and it’s worth it, if you aren’t color deficient, to try out some of the colorblindness sites and see the world as we do.

https://www.colourblindawareness.org/colour-blindness/colour...

>1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women go through the same sorts of experiences, and it’s worth it, if you aren’t color

Not the same, it's a gradient.

For sure, but if you don't have any friends, don't discount the value of using tools such as CoBlis:

https://www.color-blindness.com/coblis-color-blindness-simul...

.. to get an idea of the impact of your UI design on color-limited folks out there ..

I don't even seen the paragraphs anymore, just sentence diagrams!

Here's Claud attacking your post:

http://schnecke.bombcar.com/random/sentence_diagram.png

I think that's a good idea, altho you can probably get away with good old NLP to do it.

Were in an era where virtually all sw could have an mcp intf to do anything...not even just color.

The old disparaging term was “angry fruit salad”: <http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/A/angry-fruit-salad.htm...>

It's basic bause it does like two things. It's not advanced or complex. HN is also a basic forum, even though it runs in a browser.

>1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women go through the same sorts of experiences, and it’s worth it, if you aren’t color

Not the same, it's a gradient.

Were in an era where virtually all sw could have an mcp intf to do anything...not even just color.

alice pellerin • 2026-03-31

too often, i see hex editors1 that look like this:

00000000  00 00 02 00  28 00 00 00  88 15 00 00  C4 01 00 00  ⋄⋄•⋄(⋄⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
00000010  14 00 00 00  03 00 00 00  00 01 00 00  03 00 00 00  •⋄⋄⋄•⋄⋄⋄⋄•⋄⋄•⋄⋄⋄
00000020  3C 00 00 00  C4 0A 00 00  50 00 00 00  18 00 00 00  <⋄⋄⋄×⏎⋄⋄P⋄⋄⋄•⋄⋄⋄
00000030  14 00 00 10  00 00 00 00  18 00 00 20  00 00 00 00  •⋄⋄•⋄⋄⋄⋄•⋄⋄ ⋄⋄⋄⋄
00000040  20 00 00 30  00 00 00 00  51 00 00 00  48 00 00 00   ⋄⋄0⋄⋄⋄⋄Q⋄⋄⋄H⋄⋄⋄
00000050  10 00 00 80  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 A0  00 00 00 00  •⋄⋄×⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄×⋄⋄⋄⋄
00000060  01 00 00 A0  01 00 00 00  02 00 00 A0  02 00 00 00  •⋄⋄×•⋄⋄⋄•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄⋄
00000070  03 00 00 A0  03 00 00 00  04 00 00 A0  04 00 00 00  •⋄⋄×•⋄⋄⋄•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄⋄
00000080  05 00 00 A0  05 00 00 00  06 00 00 A0  06 00 00 00  •⋄⋄×•⋄⋄⋄•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄⋄
00000090  20 00 00 30  00 00 00 00  53 00 00 00  00 DE 00 00   ⋄⋄0⋄⋄⋄⋄S⋄⋄⋄⋄×⋄⋄
000000a0  5D FA 01 44  E1 3A 9A 0F  52 00 00 00  FC 14 00 00  ]×•D×:×•R⋄⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
000000b0  1B 20 2A 2B  00 80 00 00  00 80 00 00  00 80 00 00  • *+⋄×⋄⋄⋄×⋄⋄⋄×⋄⋄
000000c0  FF 7F 00 00  00 00 33 52  00 00 00 00  29 10 15 10  ╳•⋄⋄⋄⋄3R⋄⋄⋄⋄)•••
000000d0  80 00 1F 00  03 00 00 00  02 00 00 00  40 14 22 23  ×⋄•⋄•⋄⋄⋄•⋄⋄⋄@•"#
000000e0  03 00 00 00  06 00 00 00  23 00 9D 05  6B FA C0 05  •⋄⋄⋄•⋄⋄⋄#⋄×•k××•
000000f0  C8 03 00 00  14 22 23 14  05 00 00 00  2E 00 9E 06  ×•⋄⋄•"#••⋄⋄⋄.⋄×•

every time i do, i feel bad for the poor person having to use it (especially if that person is me!). a plain list of bytes makes it hard to notice interesting things in the data. go ahead, try to find the single C0 in these bytes:

00000000  15 29 21 25  03 2F 2E 2B  15 11 24 3F  10 14 3B 13  •)!%•/.+••$?••;•
00000001  32 25 09 01  10 02 01 23  26 1E 25 2D  24 2F 23 3E  2%␣••••#&•%-$/#>
00000002  05 0F 33 2D  18 29 3E 1E  16 3B 29 0D  24 0B 3E 38  ••3-•)>••;)␍$•>8
00000003  33 3C 1E 2C  28 31 C0 1D  11 32 14 05  10 17 3F 01  3<•,(1×••2••••?•
00000004  1E 32 0A 14  2B 2F 0B 14  3E 27 39 0A  17 23 1B 39  •2⏎•+/••>'9⏎•#•9
00000005  18 0B 3B 13  25 14 2C 3B  33 3C 19 10  21 0F 2C 34  ••;•%•,;3<••!•,4
00000006  2F 0C 1D 2C  2E 22 11 28  0D 0A 1F 37  27 39 35 21  /••,."•(␍⏎•7'95!
00000007  23 39 21 2B  37 23 28 16  30 28 02 04  25 22 37 1F  #9!+7#(•0(••%"7•
00000008  36 2F 2D 25  12 25 01 31  3B 39 2D 35  26 37 30 2A  6/-%•%•1;9-5&70*
00000009  06 0D 11 1F  25 0A 1E 29  15 0B 0A 2A  2E 2C 21 16  •␍••%⏎•)••⏎*.,!•
0000000a  1D 37 0F 16  12 03 2C 02  0B 22 24 11  1A 3B 0D 0B  •7••••,••"$••;␍•
0000000b  0D 13 30 2D  3B 15 05 15  32 19 20 30  3C 0E 3D 0B  ␍•0-;•••2• 0<•=•
0000000c  17 24 22 3E  1E 22 18 0D  21 06 29 38  3E 20 3B 12  •$">•"•␍!•)8> ;•
0000000d  06 1F 19 17  29 35 1E 3B  1E 01 31 08  13 0C 27 20  ••••)5•;••1•••' 
0000000e  08 24 2E 32  16 06 1F 3D  35 35 19 16  02 07 31 13  •$.2•••=55••••1•
0000000f  31 33 30 36  14 32 07 05  05 34 19 0B  18 16 12 3C  1306•2•••4•••••<

compare that to one with colors:

00000000  37 2D 08 13  0D 0B 18 1D  02 1A 2D 12  2A 0D 0F 27  7-••␍•••••-•*␍•'
00000001  04 2A 25 32  0F 17 32 11  2F 2A 2A 0A  0A 16 04 1D  •*%2••2•/**⏎⏎•••
00000002  32 13 09 01  2B 26 1A 30  3D 26 13 39  09 0D 38 3E  2•␣•+&•0=&•9␣␍8>
00000003  0A 0D 1D 0B  36 30 02 36  0E 0B 2F 09  26 1E 33 03  ⏎␍••60•6••/␣&•3•
00000004  3C 3C 08 0A  1E 36 12 11  1B 17 05 09  0B 37 0C 0E  <<•⏎•6•••••␣•7••
00000005  31 05 09 17  2D 1D 05 16  25 03 3E 0A  1A 01 0C 2B  1•␣•-•••%•>⏎•••+
00000006  13 37 17 14  37 03 18 34  2D 03 30 11  2B 19 04 0B  •7••7••4-•0•+•••
00000007  04 2A 18 26  21 25 3F 23  1D 0F 2F 2B  35 0C 09 37  •*•&!%?#••/+5•␣7
00000008  25 33 19 1C  12 1E 2E 38  3A 3A 3C 28  39 0A 30 23  %3••••.8::<(9⏎0#
00000009  21 08 09 24  0B 0E 13 26  04 30 06 20  10 18 15 3C  !•␣$•••&•0• •••<
0000000a  10 3C 30 34  28 28 1D 31  22 23 22 38  0E 12 25 15  •<04((•1"#"8••%•
0000000b  3B 1F 30 0D  26 0E 15 32  1C 2B 12 1A  32 1C 02 07  ;•0␍&••2•+••2•••
0000000c  35 2E 06 13  1F 33 3D 16  05 1C 2A 0F  34 34 21 26  5.•••3=•••*•44!&
0000000d  0C 17 3D 02  27 39 21 17  3F 07 1A 2F  38 0D 2D 1E  ••=•'9!•?••/8␍-•
0000000e  32 0C C0 14  0E 20 25 0E  2E 2D 0D 21  27 13 2C 07  2•×•• %•.-␍!'•,•
0000000f  14 0A 20 31  15 13 2C 3B  0F 12 1A 2D  0C 11 32 11  •⏎ 1••,;•••-••2•

it’s much easier to pick out the unique byte when it’s a different color! human brains are really good at spotting visual patterns—given the right format

here are a few more examples:

example 1

no color

00000000  4B 50 53 00  0A 00 00 00  0C 00 00 00  01 00 00 00  KPS⋄⏎⋄⋄⋄•⋄⋄⋄•⋄⋄⋄
00000010  00 00 00 00  B4 00 00 00  46 00 00 00  64 00 00 00  ⋄⋄⋄⋄×⋄⋄⋄F⋄⋄⋄d⋄⋄⋄
00000020  46 00 00 00  02 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  DC 00 00 00  F⋄⋄⋄•⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄×⋄⋄⋄
00000030  50 00 00 00  A0 00 00 00  50 00 00 00  03 00 00 00  P⋄⋄⋄×⋄⋄⋄P⋄⋄⋄•⋄⋄⋄
00000040  00 00 00 00  FA 00 00 00  5A 00 00 00  B4 00 00 00  ⋄⋄⋄⋄×⋄⋄⋄Z⋄⋄⋄×⋄⋄⋄
00000050  5A 00 00 00  04 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  18 01 00 00  Z⋄⋄⋄•⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄••⋄⋄
00000060  64 00 00 00  C8 00 00 00  64 00 00 00  05 00 00 00  d⋄⋄⋄×⋄⋄⋄d⋄⋄⋄•⋄⋄⋄
00000070  00 00 00 00  4A 01 00 00  78 00 00 00  F0 00 00 00  ⋄⋄⋄⋄J•⋄⋄x⋄⋄⋄×⋄⋄⋄
00000080  78 00 00 00  06 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  90 01 00 00  x⋄⋄⋄•⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
00000090  8C 00 00 00  18 01 00 00  8C 00 00 00  07 00 00 00  ×⋄⋄⋄••⋄⋄×⋄⋄⋄•⋄⋄⋄
000000a0  00 00 00 00  F4 01 00 00  B4 00 00 00  68 01 00 00  ⋄⋄⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×⋄⋄⋄h•⋄⋄
000000b0  B4 00 00 00  08 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  58 02 00 00  ×⋄⋄⋄•⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄X•⋄⋄
000000c0  DC 00 00 00  B8 01 00 00  DC 00 00 00  09 00 00 00  ×⋄⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×⋄⋄⋄␣⋄⋄⋄
000000d0  E7 03 00 00  E7 03 00 00  00 00 00 00  E7 03 00 00  ×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
000000e0  E7 03 00 00  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  ×•⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄
000000f0  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00               ⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄

color

00000000  4B 50 53 00  0A 00 00 00  0C 00 00 00  01 00 00 00  KPS⋄⏎⋄⋄⋄•⋄⋄⋄•⋄⋄⋄
00000010  00 00 00 00  B4 00 00 00  46 00 00 00  64 00 00 00  ⋄⋄⋄⋄×⋄⋄⋄F⋄⋄⋄d⋄⋄⋄
00000020  46 00 00 00  02 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  DC 00 00 00  F⋄⋄⋄•⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄×⋄⋄⋄
00000030  50 00 00 00  A0 00 00 00  50 00 00 00  03 00 00 00  P⋄⋄⋄×⋄⋄⋄P⋄⋄⋄•⋄⋄⋄
00000040  00 00 00 00  FA 00 00 00  5A 00 00 00  B4 00 00 00  ⋄⋄⋄⋄×⋄⋄⋄Z⋄⋄⋄×⋄⋄⋄
00000050  5A 00 00 00  04 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  18 01 00 00  Z⋄⋄⋄•⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄••⋄⋄
00000060  64 00 00 00  C8 00 00 00  64 00 00 00  05 00 00 00  d⋄⋄⋄×⋄⋄⋄d⋄⋄⋄•⋄⋄⋄
00000070  00 00 00 00  4A 01 00 00  78 00 00 00  F0 00 00 00  ⋄⋄⋄⋄J•⋄⋄x⋄⋄⋄×⋄⋄⋄
00000080  78 00 00 00  06 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  90 01 00 00  x⋄⋄⋄•⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
00000090  8C 00 00 00  18 01 00 00  8C 00 00 00  07 00 00 00  ×⋄⋄⋄••⋄⋄×⋄⋄⋄•⋄⋄⋄
000000a0  00 00 00 00  F4 01 00 00  B4 00 00 00  68 01 00 00  ⋄⋄⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×⋄⋄⋄h•⋄⋄
000000b0  B4 00 00 00  08 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  58 02 00 00  ×⋄⋄⋄•⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄X•⋄⋄
000000c0  DC 00 00 00  B8 01 00 00  DC 00 00 00  09 00 00 00  ×⋄⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×⋄⋄⋄␣⋄⋄⋄
000000d0  E7 03 00 00  E7 03 00 00  00 00 00 00  E7 03 00 00  ×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
000000e0  E7 03 00 00  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  ×•⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄
000000f0  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00               ⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄

this file starts with the magic bytes KPS, then a bunch of (little-endian) 32-bit integers that range from 0 to 999 (0x3E7). the colors make it quick to recognize that every 32-bit integer is relatively small, as the two high bytes are always 00 00. if you look closely, you may notice other patterns, like the numbers counting up every 0x18 bytes starting at 0xC

if you're curious about this particular file format, the code that parses it is pretty simple, even if you're not a programmer. there's even a wiki page for the data it represents, if you're into Fossil Fighters

example 2

no color

00000000  44 41 4C 00  59 06 00 00  F4 07 00 00  F5 01 00 00  DAL⋄Y•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
00000010  14 00 00 00  E8 07 00 00  08 08 00 00  44 08 00 00  •⋄⋄⋄×•⋄⋄••⋄⋄D•⋄⋄
00000020  84 08 00 00  C8 08 00 00  04 09 00 00  40 09 00 00  ×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄•␣⋄⋄@␣⋄⋄
00000030  7C 09 00 00  B8 09 00 00  F8 09 00 00  34 0A 00 00  |␣⋄⋄×␣⋄⋄×␣⋄⋄4⏎⋄⋄
00000040  70 0A 00 00  AC 0A 00 00  EC 0A 00 00  30 0B 00 00  p⏎⋄⋄×⏎⋄⋄×⏎⋄⋄0•⋄⋄
00000050  6C 0B 00 00  A8 0B 00 00  E8 0B 00 00  24 0C 00 00  l•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄$•⋄⋄
00000060  60 0C 00 00  9C 0C 00 00  D8 0C 00 00  14 0D 00 00  `•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄•␍⋄⋄
00000070  50 0D 00 00  8C 0D 00 00  CC 0D 00 00  08 0E 00 00  P␍⋄⋄×␍⋄⋄×␍⋄⋄••⋄⋄
00000080  48 0E 00 00  84 0E 00 00  C4 0E 00 00  08 0F 00 00  H•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄••⋄⋄
00000090  44 0F 00 00  80 0F 00 00  C0 0F 00 00  04 10 00 00  D•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄••⋄⋄
000000a0  40 10 00 00  80 10 00 00  C4 10 00 00  00 11 00 00  @•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄⋄•⋄⋄
000000b0  3C 11 00 00  7C 11 00 00  B8 11 00 00  F4 11 00 00  <•⋄⋄|•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
000000c0  34 12 00 00  70 12 00 00  B0 12 00 00  F4 12 00 00  4•⋄⋄p•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
000000d0  30 13 00 00  70 13 00 00  B4 13 00 00  F0 13 00 00  0•⋄⋄p•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
000000e0  2C 14 00 00  68 14 00 00  A4 14 00 00  E4 14 00 00  ,•⋄⋄h•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
000000f0  20 15 00 00  5C 15 00 00  9C 15 00 00  E0 15 00 00   •⋄⋄\•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
00000100  1C 16 00 00  58 16 00 00  98 16 00 00  DC 16 00 00  ••⋄⋄X•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
00000110  18 17 00 00  58 17 00 00  9C 17 00 00  D8 17 00 00  ••⋄⋄X•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
00000120  14 18 00 00  54 18 00 00  90 18 00 00  D0 18 00 00  ••⋄⋄T•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
00000130  14 19 00 00  50 19 00 00  8C 19 00 00  C8 19 00 00  ••⋄⋄P•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
00000140  04 1A 00 00  40 1A 00 00  7C 1A 00 00  B8 1A 00 00  ••⋄⋄@•⋄⋄|•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
00000150  F4 1A 00 00  30 1B 00 00  6C 1B 00 00  AC 1B 00 00  ×•⋄⋄0•⋄⋄l•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
00000160  F0 1B 00 00  2C 1C 00 00  68 1C 00 00  A8 1C 00 00  ×•⋄⋄,•⋄⋄h•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
00000170  EC 1C 00 00  28 1D 00 00  68 1D 00 00  AC 1D 00 00  ×•⋄⋄(•⋄⋄h•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
00000180  E8 1D 00 00  28 1E 00 00  6C 1E 00 00  A8 1E 00 00  ×•⋄⋄(•⋄⋄l•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
00000190  E8 1E 00 00  2C 1F 00 00  68 1F 00 00  A8 1F 00 00  ×•⋄⋄,•⋄⋄h•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
000001a0  EC 1F 00 00  28 20 00 00  68 20 00 00  AC 20 00 00  ×•⋄⋄( ⋄⋄h ⋄⋄× ⋄⋄
000001b0  E8 20 00 00  30 21 00 00  6C 21 00 00  A8 21 00 00  × ⋄⋄0!⋄⋄l!⋄⋄×!⋄⋄
000001c0  E4 21 00 00  24 22 00 00  68 22 00 00  A4 22 00 00  ×!⋄⋄$"⋄⋄h"⋄⋄×"⋄⋄
000001d0  E0 22 00 00  1C 23 00 00  5C 23 00 00  A0 23 00 00  ×"⋄⋄•#⋄⋄\#⋄⋄×#⋄⋄
000001e0  DC 23 00 00  18 24 00 00  58 24 00 00  9C 24 00 00  ×#⋄⋄•$⋄⋄X$⋄⋄×$⋄⋄
000001f0  D8 24 00 00  18 25 00 00  54 25 00 00  94 25 00 00  ×$⋄⋄•%⋄⋄T%⋄⋄×%⋄⋄
00000200  D8 25 00 00  14 26 00 00  54 26 00 00  90 26 00 00  ×%⋄⋄•&⋄⋄T&⋄⋄×&⋄⋄
...

color

00000000  44 41 4C 00  59 06 00 00  F4 07 00 00  F5 01 00 00  DAL⋄Y•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
00000010  14 00 00 00  E8 07 00 00  08 08 00 00  44 08 00 00  •⋄⋄⋄×•⋄⋄••⋄⋄D•⋄⋄
00000020  84 08 00 00  C8 08 00 00  04 09 00 00  40 09 00 00  ×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄•␣⋄⋄@␣⋄⋄
00000030  7C 09 00 00  B8 09 00 00  F8 09 00 00  34 0A 00 00  |␣⋄⋄×␣⋄⋄×␣⋄⋄4⏎⋄⋄
00000040  70 0A 00 00  AC 0A 00 00  EC 0A 00 00  30 0B 00 00  p⏎⋄⋄×⏎⋄⋄×⏎⋄⋄0•⋄⋄
00000050  6C 0B 00 00  A8 0B 00 00  E8 0B 00 00  24 0C 00 00  l•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄$•⋄⋄
00000060  60 0C 00 00  9C 0C 00 00  D8 0C 00 00  14 0D 00 00  `•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄•␍⋄⋄
00000070  50 0D 00 00  8C 0D 00 00  CC 0D 00 00  08 0E 00 00  P␍⋄⋄×␍⋄⋄×␍⋄⋄••⋄⋄
00000080  48 0E 00 00  84 0E 00 00  C4 0E 00 00  08 0F 00 00  H•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄••⋄⋄
00000090  44 0F 00 00  80 0F 00 00  C0 0F 00 00  04 10 00 00  D•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄••⋄⋄
000000a0  40 10 00 00  80 10 00 00  C4 10 00 00  00 11 00 00  @•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄⋄•⋄⋄
000000b0  3C 11 00 00  7C 11 00 00  B8 11 00 00  F4 11 00 00  <•⋄⋄|•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
000000c0  34 12 00 00  70 12 00 00  B0 12 00 00  F4 12 00 00  4•⋄⋄p•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
000000d0  30 13 00 00  70 13 00 00  B4 13 00 00  F0 13 00 00  0•⋄⋄p•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
000000e0  2C 14 00 00  68 14 00 00  A4 14 00 00  E4 14 00 00  ,•⋄⋄h•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
000000f0  20 15 00 00  5C 15 00 00  9C 15 00 00  E0 15 00 00   •⋄⋄\•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
00000100  1C 16 00 00  58 16 00 00  98 16 00 00  DC 16 00 00  ••⋄⋄X•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
00000110  18 17 00 00  58 17 00 00  9C 17 00 00  D8 17 00 00  ••⋄⋄X•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
00000120  14 18 00 00  54 18 00 00  90 18 00 00  D0 18 00 00  ••⋄⋄T•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
00000130  14 19 00 00  50 19 00 00  8C 19 00 00  C8 19 00 00  ••⋄⋄P•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
00000140  04 1A 00 00  40 1A 00 00  7C 1A 00 00  B8 1A 00 00  ••⋄⋄@•⋄⋄|•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
00000150  F4 1A 00 00  30 1B 00 00  6C 1B 00 00  AC 1B 00 00  ×•⋄⋄0•⋄⋄l•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
00000160  F0 1B 00 00  2C 1C 00 00  68 1C 00 00  A8 1C 00 00  ×•⋄⋄,•⋄⋄h•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
00000170  EC 1C 00 00  28 1D 00 00  68 1D 00 00  AC 1D 00 00  ×•⋄⋄(•⋄⋄h•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
00000180  E8 1D 00 00  28 1E 00 00  6C 1E 00 00  A8 1E 00 00  ×•⋄⋄(•⋄⋄l•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
00000190  E8 1E 00 00  2C 1F 00 00  68 1F 00 00  A8 1F 00 00  ×•⋄⋄,•⋄⋄h•⋄⋄×•⋄⋄
000001a0  EC 1F 00 00  28 20 00 00  68 20 00 00  AC 20 00 00  ×•⋄⋄( ⋄⋄h ⋄⋄× ⋄⋄
000001b0  E8 20 00 00  30 21 00 00  6C 21 00 00  A8 21 00 00  × ⋄⋄0!⋄⋄l!⋄⋄×!⋄⋄
000001c0  E4 21 00 00  24 22 00 00  68 22 00 00  A4 22 00 00  ×!⋄⋄$"⋄⋄h"⋄⋄×"⋄⋄
000001d0  E0 22 00 00  1C 23 00 00  5C 23 00 00  A0 23 00 00  ×"⋄⋄•#⋄⋄\#⋄⋄×#⋄⋄
000001e0  DC 23 00 00  18 24 00 00  58 24 00 00  9C 24 00 00  ×#⋄⋄•$⋄⋄X$⋄⋄×$⋄⋄
000001f0  D8 24 00 00  18 25 00 00  54 25 00 00  94 25 00 00  ×$⋄⋄•%⋄⋄T%⋄⋄×%⋄⋄
00000200  D8 25 00 00  14 26 00 00  54 26 00 00  90 26 00 00  ×%⋄⋄•&⋄⋄T&⋄⋄×&⋄⋄
...

this excerpt, starting at 0x14, has a long series of increasing 32-bit integers (little-endian again). each one is an index to a later point in the file, to a structure usually about 0x3C bytes long. the roughly-evenly-spaced indices make for some very pretty rainbow gradients

example 3

no color

...
00000030  0F 80 00 00  00 01 C1 82  82 83 01 05  04 82 03 82  •×⋄⋄⋄•××××•••×•×
00000040  0F 82 07 C2  0C C2 0B 82  0A 0D 08 02  09 C0 0E 06  •×•×•×•×⏎␍••␣×••
00000050  56 05 E8 43  01 64 52 F5  A4 8D A1 33  D5 98 BF C6  V•×C•dR××××3××××
00000060  63 EB 4C 8C  C6 C3 F8 1A  6A 2A 46 2B  C5 F8 15 F3  c×L××××•j*F+××•×
00000070  60 42 8A 71  E6 56 0C 2A  D5 4C 0C 2B  5F 31 A9 18  `B×q×V•*×L•+_1×•
00000080  4C 8C 55 CC  5B 30 C6 D6  18 37 86 7D  BB C3 8F CD  L×U×[0××•7×}××××
00000090  1E B9 BB BB  91 FA 22 23  9E 71 7A 8B  35 6F F3 84  •×××××"#×qz×5o××
000000a0  38 DE B7 C9  58 76 A4 9C  D7 C5 F8 63  CF A2 B4 BE  8×××Xv×××××c××××
000000b0  B2 45 BC 8D  F7 6A 35 EF  E2 B9 CD A7  46 F7 F9 AD  ×E×××j5×××××F×××
000000c0  7F 6F D7 BC  72 DD DB 9D  6B DE 8F EE  C6 35 EF B7  •o××r×××k××××5××
000000d0  AE 6B E4 9A  AE E9 9B 6B  AF 23 8E 66  B0 2D 22 47  ×k×××××k×#×f×-"G

color

...
00000030  0F 80 00 00  00 01 C1 82  82 83 01 05  04 82 03 82  •×⋄⋄⋄•××××•••×•×
00000040  0F 82 07 C2  0C C2 0B 82  0A 0D 08 02  09 C0 0E 06  •×•×•×•×⏎␍••␣×••
00000050  56 05 E8 43  01 64 52 F5  A4 8D A1 33  D5 98 BF C6  V•×C•dR××××3××××
00000060  63 EB 4C 8C  C6 C3 F8 1A  6A 2A 46 2B  C5 F8 15 F3  c×L××××•j*F+××•×
00000070  60 42 8A 71  E6 56 0C 2A  D5 4C 0C 2B  5F 31 A9 18  `B×q×V•*×L•+_1×•
00000080  4C 8C 55 CC  5B 30 C6 D6  18 37 86 7D  BB C3 8F CD  L×U×[0××•7×}××××
00000090  1E B9 BB BB  91 FA 22 23  9E 71 7A 8B  35 6F F3 84  •×××××"#×qz×5o××
000000a0  38 DE B7 C9  58 76 A4 9C  D7 C5 F8 63  CF A2 B4 BE  8×××Xv×××××c××××
000000b0  B2 45 BC 8D  F7 6A 35 EF  E2 B9 CD A7  46 F7 F9 AD  ×E×××j5×××××F×××
000000c0  7F 6F D7 BC  72 DD DB 9D  6B DE 8F EE  C6 35 EF B7  •o××r×××k××××5××
000000d0  AE 6B E4 9A  AE E9 9B 6B  AF 23 8E 66  B0 2D 22 47  ×k×××××k×#×f×-"G

this data is compressed using a Huffman code, specifically one compatible with the Nintendo DS BIOS. it starts with 0x20 bytes encoding the Huffman tree used, then 0x90 bytes of compressed bitstream—the actual compressed file contents

there's a big difference between the two parts that can be hard to notice without the help of colors. the tree mostly has bytes in the range 00–0F (plus some low 80s and C0s), but the bitstream has bytes evenly distributed throughout the entire range of 00–FF

the bitstream is much more colorful and chaotic because good compression algorithms output data that looks visually random. ideally, any patterns you would've noticed in the data were already found by the algorithm, and then used to make the compressed output smaller

example 4

no color

...
00000028  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  88 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  ⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄×⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄
00000038  00 00 00 00  80 80 80 78  46 77 80 08  00 00 00 00  ⋄⋄⋄⋄×××xFw×•⋄⋄⋄⋄
00000048  00 00 00 00  88 44 68 12  21 55 46 74  00 00 00 00  ⋄⋄⋄⋄×Dh•!UFt⋄⋄⋄⋄
00000058  00 00 00 70  25 41 33 53  65 13 54 54  08 00 00 00  ⋄⋄⋄p%A3Se•TT•⋄⋄⋄
00000068  00 00 70 27  22 13 43 B7  9B 67 54 32  76 08 00 00  ⋄⋄p'"•C××gT2v•⋄⋄
00000078  00 00 26 22  76 76 98 BA  AA BA 59 21  44 75 00 00  ⋄⋄&"vv××××Y!Du⋄⋄
00000088  00 80 D2 71  99 AA 99 AA  A9 AB 99 88  48 43 85 00  ⋄××q××××××××HC×⋄
00000098  00 60 12 A5  A9 9A 99 A9  AA 99 99 CA  48 55 07 00  ⋄`•×××××××××HU•⋄
000000a8  00 38 42 B9  AA 99 9A A9  99 99 89 88  77 78 88 00  ⋄8B×××××××××wx×⋄
000000b8  00 36 86 AA  99 99 B9 AA  AA 99 78 78  77 46 75 00  ⋄6××××××××xxwFu⋄
000000c8  80 67 66 A9  99 A9 AA BB  BB AA 78 67  57 44 02 08  ×gf×××××××xgWD••
000000d8  80 23 45 98  A9 AB CB BB  BB AA 89 77  57 12 95 00  ×#E××××××××wW•×⋄
000000e8  58 2E 55 98  99 BA BB CC  BB AB 79 67  56 54 98 00  X.U×××××××ygVT×⋄
000000f8  50 52 87 AA  A9 BA BB BB  CB BB 89 66  56 55 97 00  PR×××××××××fVU×⋄
00000108  48 43 A5 AA  BA BB CC CC  CB 9A 88 66  55 34 84 00  HC×××××××××fU4×⋄
00000118  70 44 A8 99  B9 CB CC CC  AC 8A 56 45  55 33 05 08  pD××××××××VEU3••
00000128  00 77 CB A9  AA BC CC CC  BC 69 45 43  43 22 A5 08  ⋄w×××××××iECC"×•
00000138  80 67 A8 99  BA BB BC CC  AB 58 44 33  32 43 A8 00  ×g×××××××XD32C×⋄
00000148  00 34 74 A9  AA BB BB BB  7A 45 23 22  23 41 99 08  ⋄4t×××××zE#"#A×•
00000158  80 46 74 99  99 AA BA AC  7A 34 22 12  23 41 87 80  ×Ft×××××z4"•#A××
00000168  00 17 52 99  89 AA AA BB  58 34 23 21  E2 4E A7 09  ⋄•R×××××X4#!×N×␣
00000178  00 36 73 99  99 98 98 A9  68 35 22 12  12 4E A9 00  ⋄6s×××××h5"••N×⋄
00000188  70 44 88 87  99 88 78 88  66 45 32 21  E1 62 AA 07  pD××××x×fE2!×b×•
00000198  70 86 69 65  88 88 68 77  56 44 23 12  21 A7 0A 00  p×ie××hwVD#•!×⏎⋄
000001a8  00 90 57 52  85 77 77 66  66 44 33 D1  42 99 00 00  ⋄×WR×wwffD3×B×⋄⋄
000001b8  00 00 70 56  41 55 65 67  54 35 12 21  63 09 00 00  ⋄⋄pVAUegT5•!c␣⋄⋄
000001c8  00 00 00 8A  44 32 22 22  1E 11 12 43  85 80 00 00  ⋄⋄⋄×D2""•••C××⋄⋄
000001d8  00 00 80 A0  57 55 12 EE  2F 22 32 54  85 08 00 00  ⋄⋄××WU•×/"2T×•⋄⋄
000001e8  00 00 00 80  99 57 33 45  75 57 66 78  A8 00 00 00  ⋄⋄⋄××W3EuWfx×⋄⋄⋄
000001f8  00 00 00 00  08 99 A9 0A  9A A0 A9 9A  08 00 00 00  ⋄⋄⋄⋄•××⏎××××•⋄⋄⋄
00000208  00 00 00 00  00 90 80 00  80 00 87 80  00 00 00 00  ⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄××⋄×⋄××⋄⋄⋄⋄
00000218  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  ⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄
...

color

...
00000028  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  88 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  ⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄×⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄
00000038  00 00 00 00  80 80 80 78  46 77 80 08  00 00 00 00  ⋄⋄⋄⋄×××xFw×•⋄⋄⋄⋄
00000048  00 00 00 00  88 44 68 12  21 55 46 74  00 00 00 00  ⋄⋄⋄⋄×Dh•!UFt⋄⋄⋄⋄
00000058  00 00 00 70  25 41 33 53  65 13 54 54  08 00 00 00  ⋄⋄⋄p%A3Se•TT•⋄⋄⋄
00000068  00 00 70 27  22 13 43 B7  9B 67 54 32  76 08 00 00  ⋄⋄p'"•C××gT2v•⋄⋄
00000078  00 00 26 22  76 76 98 BA  AA BA 59 21  44 75 00 00  ⋄⋄&"vv××××Y!Du⋄⋄
00000088  00 80 D2 71  99 AA 99 AA  A9 AB 99 88  48 43 85 00  ⋄××q××××××××HC×⋄
00000098  00 60 12 A5  A9 9A 99 A9  AA 99 99 CA  48 55 07 00  ⋄`•×××××××××HU•⋄
000000a8  00 38 42 B9  AA 99 9A A9  99 99 89 88  77 78 88 00  ⋄8B×××××××××wx×⋄
000000b8  00 36 86 AA  99 99 B9 AA  AA 99 78 78  77 46 75 00  ⋄6××××××××xxwFu⋄
000000c8  80 67 66 A9  99 A9 AA BB  BB AA 78 67  57 44 02 08  ×gf×××××××xgWD••
000000d8  80 23 45 98  A9 AB CB BB  BB AA 89 77  57 12 95 00  ×#E××××××××wW•×⋄
000000e8  58 2E 55 98  99 BA BB CC  BB AB 79 67  56 54 98 00  X.U×××××××ygVT×⋄
000000f8  50 52 87 AA  A9 BA BB BB  CB BB 89 66  56 55 97 00  PR×××××××××fVU×⋄
00000108  48 43 A5 AA  BA BB CC CC  CB 9A 88 66  55 34 84 00  HC×××××××××fU4×⋄
00000118  70 44 A8 99  B9 CB CC CC  AC 8A 56 45  55 33 05 08  pD××××××××VEU3••
00000128  00 77 CB A9  AA BC CC CC  BC 69 45 43  43 22 A5 08  ⋄w×××××××iECC"×•
00000138  80 67 A8 99  BA BB BC CC  AB 58 44 33  32 43 A8 00  ×g×××××××XD32C×⋄
00000148  00 34 74 A9  AA BB BB BB  7A 45 23 22  23 41 99 08  ⋄4t×××××zE#"#A×•
00000158  80 46 74 99  99 AA BA AC  7A 34 22 12  23 41 87 80  ×Ft×××××z4"•#A××
00000168  00 17 52 99  89 AA AA BB  58 34 23 21  E2 4E A7 09  ⋄•R×××××X4#!×N×␣
00000178  00 36 73 99  99 98 98 A9  68 35 22 12  12 4E A9 00  ⋄6s×××××h5"••N×⋄
00000188  70 44 88 87  99 88 78 88  66 45 32 21  E1 62 AA 07  pD××××x×fE2!×b×•
00000198  70 86 69 65  88 88 68 77  56 44 23 12  21 A7 0A 00  p×ie××hwVD#•!×⏎⋄
000001a8  00 90 57 52  85 77 77 66  66 44 33 D1  42 99 00 00  ⋄×WR×wwffD3×B×⋄⋄
000001b8  00 00 70 56  41 55 65 67  54 35 12 21  63 09 00 00  ⋄⋄pVAUegT5•!c␣⋄⋄
000001c8  00 00 00 8A  44 32 22 22  1E 11 12 43  85 80 00 00  ⋄⋄⋄×D2""•••C××⋄⋄
000001d8  00 00 80 A0  57 55 12 EE  2F 22 32 54  85 08 00 00  ⋄⋄××WU•×/"2T×•⋄⋄
000001e8  00 00 00 80  99 57 33 45  75 57 66 78  A8 00 00 00  ⋄⋄⋄××W3EuWfx×⋄⋄⋄
000001f8  00 00 00 00  08 99 A9 0A  9A A0 A9 9A  08 00 00 00  ⋄⋄⋄⋄•××⏎××××•⋄⋄⋄
00000208  00 00 00 00  00 90 80 00  80 00 87 80  00 00 00 00  ⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄××⋄×⋄××⋄⋄⋄⋄
00000218  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  ⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄⋄
...

this final excerpt is from the bitmap data for the following image:

a shallow, top-down, pixel-art hole in the ground

like all the other examples, it comes from the Nintendo DS game Fossil Fighters. specifically, the hole the player makes when digging for fossils:

a screenshot from Fossil Fighters showing the player character holding a pickax, with the hole from before on the ground in front of him

because the bitmap uses 4-bit color indices, each digit of the hexdump encodes exactly one pixel of the image. i think the result mostly speaks for itself, but i'd specifically like to point out the highlight at the bottom right of the hole. in the plain hexdump, you might be able to pick out the general shape of the hole—especially if you look at the character panel on the right—but with color, you can pick up an incredible amount of detail!

what colors are best?

if you’ve used a hex editor with color-coding before, you may have noticed something different about the way i’m choosing to color-code bytes

most colorful hex editors have a few categories they sort bytes into, like 00 bytes, printable ASCII, ASCII whitespace, other ASCII, non-ASCII, or FF bytes

hexyl, for example, uses the following categories by default:

⋄ NULL bytes (0x00)
a ASCII printable characters (0x20 - 0x7E)
_ ASCII whitespace (0x09 - 0x0D, 0x20)
• ASCII control characters (except NULL and whitespace)
× Non-ASCII bytes (0x80 - 0xFF)

which end up looking something like this:

00 01 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 A0 B0 C0 D0 E0 F0 FF

full hexdump with hexyl colors

00000000  00 01 02 03  04 05 06 07  08 09 0A 0B  0C 0D 0E 0F  ⋄••••••••__•__••
00000010  10 11 12 13  14 15 16 17  18 19 1A 1B  1C 1D 1E 1F  ••••••••••••••••
00000020  20 21 22 23  24 25 26 27  28 29 2A 2B  2C 2D 2E 2F   !"#$%&'()*+,-./
00000030  30 31 32 33  34 35 36 37  38 39 3A 3B  3C 3D 3E 3F  0123456789:;<=>?
00000040  40 41 42 43  44 45 46 47  48 49 4A 4B  4C 4D 4E 4F  @ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO
00000050  50 51 52 53  54 55 56 57  58 59 5A 5B  5C 5D 5E 5F  PQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_
00000060  60 61 62 63  64 65 66 67  68 69 6A 6B  6C 6D 6E 6F  `abcdefghijklmno
00000070  70 71 72 73  74 75 76 77  78 79 7A 7B  7C 7D 7E 7F  pqrstuvwxyz{|}~•
00000080  80 81 82 83  84 85 86 87  88 89 8A 8B  8C 8D 8E 8F  ××××××××××××××××
00000090  90 91 92 93  94 95 96 97  98 99 9A 9B  9C 9D 9E 9F  ××××××××××××××××
000000a0  A0 A1 A2 A3  A4 A5 A6 A7  A8 A9 AA AB  AC AD AE AF  ××××××××××××××××
000000b0  B0 B1 B2 B3  B4 B5 B6 B7  B8 B9 BA BB  BC BD BE BF  ××××××××××××××××
000000c0  C0 C1 C2 C3  C4 C5 C6 C7  C8 C9 CA CB  CC CD CE CF  ××××××××××××××××
000000d0  D0 D1 D2 D3  D4 D5 D6 D7  D8 D9 DA DB  DC DD DE DF  ××××××××××××××××
000000e0  E0 E1 E2 E3  E4 E5 E6 E7  E8 E9 EA EB  EC ED EE EF  ××××××××××××××××
000000f0  F0 F1 F2 F3  F4 F5 F6 F7  F8 F9 FA FB  FC FD FE FF  ××××××××××××××××

these broad categories are enough to pick out common patterns like repeated null bytes and ASCII strings. they also create enough variation to track visually when scrolling, which i find quite helpful. it can be really disorienting to scroll around a fully monochrome hexdump

i, however, am going further, with 18 total groups: one for each leading nybble (0X, 1X, 2X...), plus two extras for 00 andFF:

00 01 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 A0 B0 C0 D0 E0 F0 FF

full hexdump with my colors

00000000  00 01 02 03  04 05 06 07  08 09 0A 0B  0C 0D 0E 0F  ⋄••••••••→⏎••␍••
00000010  10 11 12 13  14 15 16 17  18 19 1A 1B  1C 1D 1E 1F  ••••••••••••••••
00000020  20 21 22 23  24 25 26 27  28 29 2A 2B  2C 2D 2E 2F   !"#$%&'()*+,-./
00000030  30 31 32 33  34 35 36 37  38 39 3A 3B  3C 3D 3E 3F  0123456789:;<=>?
00000040  40 41 42 43  44 45 46 47  48 49 4A 4B  4C 4D 4E 4F  @ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO
00000050  50 51 52 53  54 55 56 57  58 59 5A 5B  5C 5D 5E 5F  PQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_
00000060  60 61 62 63  64 65 66 67  68 69 6A 6B  6C 6D 6E 6F  `abcdefghijklmno
00000070  70 71 72 73  74 75 76 77  78 79 7A 7B  7C 7D 7E 7F  pqrstuvwxyz{|}~•
00000080  80 81 82 83  84 85 86 87  88 89 8A 8B  8C 8D 8E 8F  ××××××××××××××××
00000090  90 91 92 93  94 95 96 97  98 99 9A 9B  9C 9D 9E 9F  ××××××××××××××××
000000a0  A0 A1 A2 A3  A4 A5 A6 A7  A8 A9 AA AB  AC AD AE AF  ××××××××××××××××
000000b0  B0 B1 B2 B3  B4 B5 B6 B7  B8 B9 BA BB  BC BD BE BF  ××××××××××××××××
000000c0  C0 C1 C2 C3  C4 C5 C6 C7  C8 C9 CA CB  CC CD CE CF  ××××××××××××××××
000000d0  D0 D1 D2 D3  D4 D5 D6 D7  D8 D9 DA DB  DC DD DE DF  ××××××××××××××××
000000e0  E0 E1 E2 E3  E4 E5 E6 E7  E8 E9 EA EB  EC ED EE EF  ××××××××××××××××
000000f0  F0 F1 F2 F3  F4 F5 F6 F7  F8 F9 FA FB  FC FD FE FF  ×××××××××××××××╳

having more colors makes it possible to recognize more complex patterns, like the ascending offsets from example 2 or the different sections in example 3. ASCII text is still recognizable, but instead of solid cyan, it's a variated green and orange:

my colors

00000000  6C 6F 6F 6B  20 6D 61 2C  20 69 27 6D  20 41 53 43  look ma, i'm ASC
00000010  49 49 21 20  6C 6F 72 65  6D 20 69 70  73 75 6D 20  II! lorem ipsum 
00000020  61 6E 64 20  61 6C 6C 20  74 68 61 74  20 69 67     and all that ig

hexyl's colors

00000000  6C 6F 6F 6B  20 6D 61 2C  20 69 27 6D  20 41 53 43  look ma, i'm ASC
00000010  49 49 21 20  6C 6F 72 65  6D 20 69 70  73 75 6D 20  II! lorem ipsum 
00000020  61 6E 64 20  61 6C 6C 20  74 68 61 74  20 69 67     and all that ig

non-ASCII UTF-8, on the other hand, looks completely different, with its own unique pattern that's only visible if you have a large number of color groups:

my colors

00000000  73 6F 6D 65  20 55 54 46  2D 38 3A 20  E3 81 93 E3  some UTF-8: ××××
00000010  82 93 E3 81  AB E3 81 A1  E3 81 AF E3  80 81 E3 82  ××××××××××××××××
00000020  A2 E3 83 AA  E3 82 B9 E3  81 A7 E3 81  99 EF BC 81  ××××××××××××××××

hexyl's colors

00000000  73 6F 6D 65  20 55 54 46  2D 38 3A 20  E3 81 93 E3  some UTF-8: ××××
00000010  82 93 E3 81  AB E3 81 A1  E3 81 AF E3  80 81 E3 82  ××××××××××××××××
00000020  A2 E3 83 AA  E3 82 B9 E3  81 A7 E3 81  99 EF BC 81  ××××××××××××××××

there are a million more examples i could give, like negative numbers in two's complement (BD FF FF FF), machine code, encrypted data, color palettes, transformation matrices, and so on, but hopefully the ones i've given are enough to get my point across

colorful output in a hexdump is useful for the same reason that syntax highlighting for code is useful: it takes advantage of our brains' powerful visual pattern recognition. it lets us notice details in the data just as quickly as we notice details in the environment around us. color-coded bytes should be as prevalent in hex editors as syntax highlighting is in code editors today

so what can you do about it?

there are lots of tools out there that use color, here are some that i know of:

hex viewers:

hexyl
byte categories by default, gradient option
xcd-rgb
full rainbow byte coloring
hevi
uses colors to indicate sections for certain file types
xxd
option for byte categories, off2 by default

hex editors:

Hexerator
full rainbow byte coloring, and tons of other features
REHex
multiple color options (including custom), off by default
Hex Fiend
option for byte categories, off by default
custom colors if you're willing to work for it

if you know any other good ones, please let me know! if you work on any tools that show hexdumps, i highly recommend adding colors, ideally with a large number of groups (feel free to copy mine!). at the very least, making 00s more subtle than other bytes is extremely helpful

the main goal of this article is to spread awareness that this feature exists. it provides a lot of utility with practically no downside, and more people should be asking for it. if you'd like to submit a feature request for the tool you use most, i hope this article can serve as an explanation for why it's worth adding

while writing this article, i actually started making my own custom hex editor, called hexapoda >_<. it takes inspiration from Helix and Teehee (among others), with modal editing, multiple cursors, and selection-first operations (written in Rust, with Ratatui!). if enough people want, i might polish it up and write some docs so anyone can use it, but for now, it's just for me :3

and also tools like xxd or hexyl that show hex but don't let you edit it ⏎
by default, xxd's color output is set to "auto", which doesn't output any color for me, so i'm not sure what it's doing ⏎

entirely human-made,
please don't hesitate to report a mistake or suggest a fix!

discuss on Mastodon or Lobsters

Hacker Times

Hacker Times

Your hex editor should color-code bytes

Discussion

Discussion

example 1

example 2

example 3

example 4

what colors are best?

so what can you do about it?