Before we delve a bit deeper into what each does and how, it's very important to understand that the commands operate differently according to the layer we're on and this points back to the different way the ZX Spectrum Next stores colour. When we're dealing with modes that make use of attribute cells, we need to think in terms of those cells. PAPER there affects the background or, in other words, the place in the cell where graphic data is non existent (set to 0) whereas INK does the exact opposite and affects areas within the same cell where graphic data is existent (set to 1). Moreover these commands affect the entire attribute cell and not just one singular pixel within the cell. In other words, it doesn't matter how many times you set the INK or PAPER within a particular cell, only the last command will be the one that has the permanent effect for that cell. BRIGHT similarly affects the entire cell as we already saw, however it does absolutely nothing if EnhancedULA is enabled or if we are on modes that do not support attributes like HiRes, LoRes and Layer 2.

On LoRes and Layer2, since attribute cells do not exist, the entire notion of PAPER and INK should be irrelevant. It is easier, however, for the user to understand them in similar terms as the attribute display modes i.e. in terms of a character-based display. Indeed, there's nothing stopping us from having an 8 x 8 character drawn on screen (say a 2) with every single pixel around the character having a different colour, something that's impossible on attribute display modes. This however would be very difficult to do in terms of a singular colour command and for that reason PAPER and INK commands were simply extended to work in a similar manner as their attribute cell modes' counterparts even where their underlying mechanics are different. On the other hand, in HiRes mode, PAPER and INK commands only serve the purpose of selecting a colour scheme as we will see below. The following table shows all primary colour commands functionality according to the graphics mode we're in.

Table 7 – Colour commands' functionality according to Graphics Mode/Layer

There is another way of using INK, PAPER etc, which you will probably find more useful than having them as statements. You can put them as items in a PRINT statement (followed by ;), and they then do exactly the same as they would have done if they had been used as statements on their own, except that their effect is only temporary: it lasts as far as the end of the PRINT statement that contains them. Thus if you type:

PRINT PAPER 6;"x";: PRINT "y"

then only the x will be on a yellow background.

When used as statements in Layer 0, INK, PAPER, BRIGHT and FLASH, do not affect the colours of the lower part of the screen, where commands and INPUT data are typed in. The lower part of the screen uses the colour of the BORDER as its PAPER colour, value 9 for contrast as its INK colour, has FLASH turned off, and everything is set at normal BRIGHT.