How to use color in text with ReStructured Text (rst2html.py) or how to insert HTML tags without blank lines?

Question

How can I use color with ReStructured Text? For example, **hello** translates into hello. How can I make ReStructure(r

Answer 1

Combining @prosseek's and @RayLuo's answers all in one place - to make easier to find

At the top of your RST file, place

.. raw:: html

    <style> .red {color:red} </style>

.. role:: red

:red:`test - this text should be red`

SIDE COMMENT:

Of course, many folks will want the style in a separate file, as @sienkiew says.

But not always.

E.g. I am generating the above from a script that I want other users to be able to run, often from a file URL. Depending on rst2html.py is bad enough - requiring something nonstandard to be in a config file is worse.

If there were a way to create a weak local definition for the style - e.g. "if there is no style .red already defined use this, but otherwise use the style already defined" - would be nice. But AFAIK local definitions are stronger.

This ran with rst2html.py (Docutils 0.13.1 [release], Python 3.6.4, on cygwin), but other RST tools rejected.