Spirit's Guide: No Man's Sky Text Code Formatting

NMS // TEXT CODES

Every color and icon tag usable in No Man's Sky's text fields (base names, ships, containers, saves…), compiled from the game's configuration tables and verified by the community.

Color syntax: <NAME_COLOR>Text</>
Icon syntax: <IMG>NAME_ICON<>

How to use the tags

Syntax

  • Color: <NAME_COLOR>Text</> — opens with the tag name, closes with </>.
  • Icon: <IMG>NAME_ICON<> — opens with <IMG>, closes with <> (not </>).
  • Both can be freely combined in the same field, as long as you stay under that field's character limit.
  • This works in any editable text field in the game (base names, ships, containers, saves…), on every platform the game is available on (PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch).
  • Match the exact case and spelling (capitals, underscores): a single typo and the code won't work.
    If it's wrong, the tag will just show up as-is, in plain text.
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Tip:
  • In-game text fields have a character limit, and tags count toward it.
  • To avoid hitting that limit too fast, favor short tags.
    (Especially if you're combining several tags in the same name.)
    • Example: (RED, PET1, PET2, SCLASS…) rather than long-winded names (MISSIONSECOND, GAL_TITLE_VISIT…)

Advanced technique: tinting an icon with a color tag

  • A color tag placed right before an icon (i.e. right before an <IMG> tag), with no space between them, applies its color to the icon — a bit like a semi-transparent filter laid over it.
    • On white/monochrome icons, this works every time.
    • On icons that already have their own color, the tint tends to replace the original color rather than blend with it.
  • Every tag still needs to be properly closed — <IMG>NAME_ICON<> always closes with its own <>, and the color always closes with its own </>.
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Important: the only thing you get to choose is where you place the color's closing tag </>:
  • right after the icon (only the icon gets tinted),
  • or after a stretch of text that follows (the icon AND the text both take the color).
Icon tinted alone
<PET1><IMG>TECH1<></> Techs
Icon + text tinted
<PET1><IMG>TECH1<> Techs</>
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Not 100% guaranteed: this behavior has been observed in-game by players, but isn't documented anywhere officially.
Some already-colored icons seem to resist the tint (the PlayStation icon is a known example), and there's no exhaustive list of every exception.
Feel free to test it in-game to be sure of the result.

Note on this simulator: for readability, it deliberately doesn't apply the tint to icons that are already strongly colored (class badges, resource icons, etc.) and shows them in their original color instead.
In-game, the tint may genuinely apply there and produce a different result than what's previewed here.

Real-world examples

Ten headings actually used to rename in-game storage containers, for clearer visual categories than "Container 1, 2, 3…" — a good showcase of what combining color + tinted icon + text actually looks like.

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Sorted like a light spectrum (red, through orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, purple), then neutral tones (black / grey / white) at the end.
Click a heading below to change the sort order.
Alpha
Category

About this guide

This tagging system is not officially documented anywhere by Hello Games. The data above comes from internal game configuration tables (sheets listing each tag, its RGBA memory target, and, for icons, the .DDS texture file path) that have circulated and been maintained by the community for several years.
They work on every platform the game is available on (PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch), in any editable text field.

Icon bank

  • The 145 icons used in the "Icons" tab were cut out (transparent background) directly from several screenshots.
  • The icons are embedded directly in this HTML file (the HTML file is self-contained; no external folder required). So you're free to move or rename this file.
  • The 145 icons are base64-encoded and embedded directly in the HTML file's JavaScript code, as an ICON_DATA object mapping each filename to a data:image/png;base64,... string.
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In practice, each PNG (already cut out, transparent background) is converted into a long base64-encoded text string, and that string is used directly as the src attribute of <img> tags — exactly as if the image were hosted online, except it's "hard-coded" straight into the file itself.
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The icons are also provided as individual PNGs (one per tag), named in lowercase (e.g. sclass.png) in a separate archive (to use as a reusable icon bank in other projects).

Duplicates found

Several tags actually point to the exact same texture file (so the same icon or color visually), under different names.
This is flagged with a duplicate badge in the tables.

Examples: DMINERAL / MINERAL, TRADE1 / TRADEABLE, MINERAL1 / COMMODITY, TECH1 / TECHNOLOGY, SALVAGE / BONES.

Portal glyphs (PR_0 through PR_15)

The PR_0 through PR_15 series corresponds to the glyphs used on portal terminals.
Confirmed functional in-game by the community (several players have used them to rename star systems).
They have their own category in the Icons tab.

Tags listed but non-functional

A group of tags (generic controller buttons: CIRCLE_W, SQUARE_W, TRIANGLE_W, CROSS_W, LS_W, RS_W, L1_W–L3_W, R1_W–R3_W, UP_W, DOWN_W, LEFT_W, RIGHT_W) shows up in the configuration tables but with no texture path assigned.
They're marked non-functional: likely reserved placeholders, not active in the game's current version.

Sources

This guide is based on compiling and cross-referencing several sources of information and tests carried out by myself and by the community. The different sources are:

  • The very useful community guide "Azure's Text Styles Formatting Guide" (a widely cited reference, including on Nexus Mods).
  • Community discussions (Steam, Reddit...) confirming the current behavior of the code tags as well as their in-game uses.
  • Multiple game screenshots and various tables found around the web.