How does one output bold text in Bash?

In order to apply a style on your string, you can use a command like:

echo -e '\033[1mYOUR_STRING\033[0m'

Explanation:

echo -e - The -e option means that escaped (backslashed) strings will be interpreted
\033 - escaped sequence represents beginning/ending of the style
lowercase m - indicates the end of the sequence
1 - Bold attribute (see below for more)
[0m - resets all attributes, colors, formatting, etc.

The possible integers are:

The most compatible way of doing this is using tput to discover the right sequences to send to the terminal:

bold=$(tput bold)
normal=$(tput sgr0)

then you can use the variables $bold and $normal to format things:

echo "this is ${bold}bold${normal} but this isn't"

gives

this is bold but this isn't

I assume bash is running on a vt100-compatible terminal in which the user did not explicitly turn off the support for formatting.

First, turn on support for special characters in echo, using -e option. Later, use ansi escape sequence ESC[1m, like:

echo -e "\033[1mSome Text"

More on ansi escape sequences for example here: ascii-table.com/ansi-escape-sequences-vt-100.php

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