Question: If I use the command below which colors the lines output in yellow, it essentially turns less into cat, printing out the entire file and disabling all of the features I need with less, such as stopping at page breaks, allowing navigation, etc.. Most of the arguments that you can use to manipulate less with are also ignored. Is there a way to prevent a sed color sequence from breaking less's features?

```
less file | sed -e 's/\(.*DATA.*\)/\o033[93m\1\o033[39m/'

```

Answer: 
Perhaps you meant to use `less` on the output of `sed`, rather than the reverse:

```
sed -e 's/\(.*DATA.*\)/\o033[93m\1\o033[39m/' file | less -R

```

Further reading:

* [less - opposite of more](http://linux.die.net/man/1/less)
If you want to pass the output to `less` you don't need a `sed` command at all, just set how `less` should highlight searched pattern (e.g. in `.bashrc`):

```
export LESS_TERMCAP_so=$'\e[93m'    # begin standout mode
export LESS_TERMCAP_se=$'\e[m'      # end standout mode

```

and then run `less` with `-p` option:

```
less -p '.*DATA.*' file

```