How can I put bold text and formatting in Jenkins console output of Junit test?

Question

I am running a bunch of Java/JUnit/Selenium tests via a Jenkins build and it works great. I was wondering, however, how I can spice up the console output with simple things like bold text and that sort of thing.

To be clear, by 'output' I mean the Jenkins console output. My tests write some simple messages for troubleshooting, and also for listing when a test begins and ends. I'd like to use html or similar formatting for some of these messages. Is that possible?

I'm using Maven to run the tests in the build and I see that Maven outputs color and bold text. How can I do that?

I'm hoping to do this without a plugin if possible.

Solution

Beside trying to spice up the look of the console line for example using * or =-=---=-=-= or others you can install couple of plugins and experiment with them.

One is called "Ansi color plugin" which brings some coloring in.

here is the link : https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/AnsiColor+Plugin

and the other one is called "Log parse plugin" for formatting the warnings and errors and so on...

here is the link : https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Log+Parser+Plugin

Enjoy ! :)