RAL to HEX Reference

The RAL to HEX reference covers the European paint standard and what this page can honestly do with it: describe a colour using the nearest CSS name, because no RAL dataset ships with the build.

What is RAL to HEX Reference?

RAL is a colour standard from the painting and coatings world, and it is specified by code rather than by value. RAL Classic uses four digits — a blue such as 5015, a green such as 6005 — and RAL Design uses seven, in a system built for architectural and industrial finishes. That structure is the whole point of the standard: a code is a durable instruction that survives a supplier change, a colour card fading in a workshop drawer, or a designer leaving the project. What a code is not is a hex value.

So the ral color codes question splits the same way it does for any proprietary system. The reference data belongs to the standard's publisher. This page does not carry it. What it does carry is the nearest-name lookup: your colour is compared with the 141 CSS named values, the closest is drawn as a swatch with its name and hex, and the RGB distance between the two is printed beside it.

• The output is a CSS name, a hex value and a numeric distance.
• No RAL code is produced, and no RAL table is included in the build.
• The comparison is exhaustive over those 141 entries, so the nearest entry is the genuine nearest in that set.

RAL sits in the physical world in a way screens cannot reproduce. A finish has sheen, texture and a substrate: the same reference looks different in a matte powder coat on metal, in a satin wall paint and in a glossy plastic moulding, and it changes again with the light in the room. A screen value is emitted light, so a paint color conversion can only ever be a description of direction — warmer, greener, greyer — unless it is grounded in measured data or a physical chip.

Practical use follows from that. When a colour has to be specified for a physical finish, quote the RAL code in the specification and keep the screen value as a preview aid, not the other way round. When a screen palette has to approximate a painted surface, work from a measured value rather than from a memory of the colour, and keep those measured values in an imported palette where the whole team can reach the same numbers. And when the mock and the sample disagree, believe the sample: it is the object the code describes. There is a naming discipline worth borrowing from the standard too. Because ral to hex converts between a code and a screen value rather than between two screen values, keep the code in the specification and the value in the implementation, and note which reference family the code came from. A system that records a code plus a measured value survives a supplier change; one that records a screenshot does not, because a screenshot cannot be re-issued to a manufacturer. Where a range of finishes is offered, record the finish beside the code, since the same reference in a different sheen is a different result on the wall.

How to use RAL to HEX Reference

1. Set the colour you are approximating with the picker field.
2. Read the returned CSS name, hex value and distance.
3. Quote the RAL code in the specification and use the screen value only as a preview.
4. Keep measured values from real samples in an imported palette for the next job.

When to use RAL to HEX Reference vs related tools

Use this when a screen colour has to be described next to a physical finish. The Pantone to HEX reference and the Pantone approximation tool cover the same ground for the print system, and the palette importer is where measured sample values belong once they exist.

Privacy & Security

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Frequently asked questions about RAL to HEX Reference