The format plain.mp provides only five built-in colour names (variables), all of which are defined in the RGB model: red, green and blue for the primary colours and black and white. The package makes more than 500 colour names from different colour sets in different colour models available to MetaPost. Colour sets include X11, SVG, DVIPS and specifications.

The author is Stephan Hennig. The package is Copyright © 2009,2011 Stephan Hennig.