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1 *usr_06.txt* For Vim version 7.0aa. Last change: 2002 Jul 14
2
3 VIM USER MANUAL - by Bram Moolenaar
4
5 Using syntax highlighting
6
7
8 Black and white text is boring. With colors your file comes to life. This
9 not only looks nice, it also speeds up your work. Change the colors used for
10 the different sorts of text. Print your text, with the colors you see on the
11 screen.
12
13 |06.1| Switching it on
14 |06.2| No or wrong colors?
15 |06.3| Different colors
16 |06.4| With colors or without colors
17 |06.5| Printing with colors
18 |06.6| Further reading
19
20 Next chapter: |usr_07.txt| Editing more than one file
21 Previous chapter: |usr_05.txt| Set your settings
22 Table of contents: |usr_toc.txt|
23
24 ==============================================================================
25 *06.1* Switching it on
26
27 It all starts with one simple command: >
28
29 :syntax enable
30
31 That should work in most situations to get color in your files. Vim will
32 automagically detect the type of file and load the right syntax highlighting.
33 Suddenly comments are blue, keywords brown and strings red. This makes it
34 easy to overview the file. After a while you will find that black&white text
35 slows you down!
36
37 If you always want to use syntax highlighting, put the ":syntax enable"
38 command in your |vimrc| file.
39
40 If you want syntax highlighting only when the terminal supports colors, you
41 can put this in your |vimrc| file: >
42
43 if &t_Co > 1
44 syntax enable
45 endif
46
47 If you want syntax highlighting only in the GUI version, put the ":syntax
48 enable" command in your |gvimrc| file.
49
50 ==============================================================================
51 *06.2* No or wrong colors?
52
53 There can be a number of reasons why you don't see colors:
54
55 - Your terminal does not support colors.
56 Vim will use bold, italic and underlined text, but this doesn't look
57 very nice. You probably will want to try to get a terminal with
58 colors. For Unix, I recommend the xterm from the XFree86 project:
59 |xfree-xterm|.
60
61 - Your terminal does support colors, but Vim doesn't know this.
62 Make sure your $TERM setting is correct. For example, when using an
63 xterm that supports colors: >
64
65 setenv TERM xterm-color
66 <
67 or (depending on your shell): >
68
69 TERM=xterm-color; export TERM
70
71 < The terminal name must match the terminal you are using. If it
72 still doesn't work, have a look at |xterm-color|, which shows a few
73 ways to make Vim display colors (not only for an xterm).
74
75 - The file type is not recognized.
76 Vim doesn't know all file types, and sometimes it's near to impossible
77 to tell what language a file uses. Try this command: >
78
79 :set filetype
80 <
81 If the result is "filetype=" then the problem is indeed that Vim
82 doesn't know what type of file this is. You can set the type
83 manually: >
84
85 :set filetype=fortran
86
87 < To see which types are available, look in the directory
88 $VIMRUNTIME/syntax. For the GUI you can use the Syntax menu.
89 Setting the filetype can also be done with a |modeline|, so that the
90 file will be highlighted each time you edit it. For example, this
91 line can be used in a Makefile (put it near the start or end of the
92 file): >
93
94 # vim: syntax=make
95
96 < You might know how to detect the file type yourself. Often the file
97 name extension (after the dot) can be used.
98 See |new-filetype| for how to tell Vim to detect that file type.
99
100 - There is no highlighting for your file type.
101 You could try using a similar file type by manually setting it as
102 mentioned above. If that isn't good enough, you can write your own
103 syntax file, see |mysyntaxfile|.
104
105
106 Or the colors could be wrong:
107
108 - The colored text is very hard to read.
109 Vim guesses the background color that you are using. If it is black
110 (or another dark color) it will use light colors for text. If it is
111 white (or another light color) it will use dark colors for text. If
112 Vim guessed wrong the text will be hard to read. To solve this, set
113 the 'background' option. For a dark background: >
114
115 :set background=dark
116
117 < And for a light background: >
118
119 :set background=light
120
121 < Make sure you put this _before_ the ":syntax enable" command,
122 otherwise the colors will already have been set. You could do
123 ":syntax reset" after setting 'background' to make Vim set the default
124 colors again.
125
126 - The colors are wrong when scrolling bottom to top.
127 Vim doesn't read the whole file to parse the text. It starts parsing
128 wherever you are viewing the file. That saves a lot of time, but
129 sometimes the colors are wrong. A simple fix is hitting CTRL-L. Or
130 scroll back a bit and then forward again.
131 For a real fix, see |:syn-sync|. Some syntax files have a way to make
132 it look further back, see the help for the specific syntax file. For
133 example, |tex.vim| for the TeX syntax.
134
135 ==============================================================================
136 *06.3* Different colors *:syn-default-override*
137
138 If you don't like the default colors, you can select another color scheme. In
139 the GUI use the Edit/Color Scheme menu. You can also type the command: >
140
141 :colorscheme evening
142
143 "evening" is the name of the color scheme. There are several others you might
144 want to try out. Look in the directory $VIMRUNTIME/colors.
145
146 When you found the color scheme that you like, add the ":colorscheme" command
147 to your |vimrc| file.
148
149 You could also write your own color scheme. This is how you do it:
150
151 1. Select a color scheme that comes close. Copy this file to your own Vim
152 directory. For Unix, this should work: >
153
154 !mkdir ~/.vim/colors
155 !cp $VIMRUNTIME/colors/morning.vim ~/.vim/colors/mine.vim
156 <
157 This is done from Vim, because it knows the value of $VIMRUNTIME.
158
159 2. Edit the color scheme file. These entries are useful:
160
161 term attributes in a B&W terminal
162 cterm attributes in a color terminal
163 ctermfg foreground color in a color terminal
164 ctermbg background color in a color terminal
165 gui attributes in the GUI
166 guifg foreground color in the GUI
167 guibg background color in the GUI
168
169 For example, to make comments green: >
170
171 :highlight Comment ctermfg=green guifg=green
172 <
173 Attributes you can use for "cterm" and "gui" are "bold" and "underline".
174 If you want both, use "bold,underline". For details see the |:highlight|
175 command.
176
177 3. Tell Vim to always use your color scheme. Put this line in your |vimrc|: >
178
179 colorscheme mine
180
181 If you want to see what the most often used color combinations look like, use
182 these commands: >
183
184 :edit $VIMRUNTIME/syntax/colortest.vim
185 :source %
186
187 You will see text in various color combinations. You can check which ones are
188 readable and look nice.
189
190 ==============================================================================
191 *06.4* With colors or without colors
192
193 Displaying text in color takes a lot of effort. If you find the displaying
194 too slow, you might want to disable syntax highlighting for a moment: >
195
196 :syntax clear
197
198 When editing another file (or the same one) the colors will come back.
199
200 *:syn-off*
201 If you want to stop highlighting completely use: >
202
203 :syntax off
204
205 This will completely disable syntax highlighting and remove it immediately for
206 all buffers.
207
208 *:syn-manual*
209 If you want syntax highlighting only for specific files, use this: >
210
211 :syntax manual
212
213 This will enable the syntax highlighting, but not switch it on automatically
214 when starting to edit a buffer. To switch highlighting on for the current
215 buffer, set the 'syntax' option: >
216
217 :set syntax=ON
218 <
219 ==============================================================================
220 *06.5* Printing with colors *syntax-printing*
221
222 In the MS-Windows version you can print the current file with this command: >
223
224 :hardcopy
225
226 You will get the usual printer dialog, where you can select the printer and a
227 few settings. If you have a color printer, the paper output should look the
228 same as what you see inside Vim. But when you use a dark background the
229 colors will be adjusted to look good on white paper.
230
231 There are several options that change the way Vim prints:
232 'printdevice'
233 'printheader'
234 'printfont'
235 'printoptions'
236
237 To print only a range of lines, use Visual mode to select the lines and then
238 type the command: >
239
240 v100j:hardcopy
241
242 "v" starts Visual mode. "100j" moves a hundred lines down, they will be
243 highlighted. Then ":hardcopy" will print those lines. You can use other
244 commands to move in Visual mode, of course.
245
246 This also works on Unix, if you have a PostScript printer. Otherwise, you
247 will have to do a bit more work. You need to convert the text to HTML first,
248 and then print it from a web browser such as Netscape.
249
250 Convert the current file to HTML with this command: >
251
252 :source $VIMRUNTIME/syntax/2html.vim
253
254 You will see it crunching away, this can take quite a while for a large file.
255 Some time later another window shows the HTML code. Now write this somewhere
256 (doesn't matter where, you throw it away later):
257 >
258 :write main.c.html
259
260 Open this file in your favorite browser and print it from there. If all goes
261 well, the output should look exactly as it does in Vim. See |2html.vim| for
262 details. Don't forget to delete the HTML file when you are done with it.
263
264 Instead of printing, you could also put the HTML file on a web server, and let
265 others look at the colored text.
266
267 ==============================================================================
268 *06.6* Further reading
269
270 |usr_44.txt| Your own syntax highlighted.
271 |syntax| All the details.
272
273 ==============================================================================
274
275 Next chapter: |usr_07.txt| Editing more than one file
276
277 Copyright: see |manual-copyright| vim:tw=78:ts=8:ft=help:norl: