280 lines
9.4 KiB
Text
280 lines
9.4 KiB
Text
*usr_06.txt* For Vim version 7.4. Last change: 2009 Oct 28
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VIM USER MANUAL - by Bram Moolenaar
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Using syntax highlighting
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Black and white text is boring. With colors your file comes to life. This
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not only looks nice, it also speeds up your work. Change the colors used for
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the different sorts of text. Print your text, with the colors you see on the
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screen.
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|06.1| Switching it on
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|06.2| No or wrong colors?
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|06.3| Different colors
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|06.4| With colors or without colors
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|06.5| Printing with colors
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|06.6| Further reading
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Next chapter: |usr_07.txt| Editing more than one file
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Previous chapter: |usr_05.txt| Set your settings
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Table of contents: |usr_toc.txt|
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==============================================================================
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*06.1* Switching it on
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It all starts with one simple command: >
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:syntax enable
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That should work in most situations to get color in your files. Vim will
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automagically detect the type of file and load the right syntax highlighting.
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Suddenly comments are blue, keywords brown and strings red. This makes it
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easy to overview the file. After a while you will find that black&white text
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slows you down!
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If you always want to use syntax highlighting, put the ":syntax enable"
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command in your |vimrc| file.
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If you want syntax highlighting only when the terminal supports colors, you
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can put this in your |vimrc| file: >
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if &t_Co > 1
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syntax enable
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endif
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If you want syntax highlighting only in the GUI version, put the ":syntax
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enable" command in your |gvimrc| file.
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==============================================================================
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*06.2* No or wrong colors?
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There can be a number of reasons why you don't see colors:
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- Your terminal does not support colors.
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Vim will use bold, italic and underlined text, but this doesn't look
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very nice. You probably will want to try to get a terminal with
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colors. For Unix, I recommend the xterm from the XFree86 project:
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|xfree-xterm|.
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- Your terminal does support colors, but Vim doesn't know this.
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Make sure your $TERM setting is correct. For example, when using an
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xterm that supports colors: >
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setenv TERM xterm-color
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<
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or (depending on your shell): >
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TERM=xterm-color; export TERM
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< The terminal name must match the terminal you are using. If it
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still doesn't work, have a look at |xterm-color|, which shows a few
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ways to make Vim display colors (not only for an xterm).
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- The file type is not recognized.
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Vim doesn't know all file types, and sometimes it's near to impossible
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to tell what language a file uses. Try this command: >
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:set filetype
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<
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If the result is "filetype=" then the problem is indeed that Vim
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doesn't know what type of file this is. You can set the type
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manually: >
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:set filetype=fortran
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< To see which types are available, look in the directory
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$VIMRUNTIME/syntax. For the GUI you can use the Syntax menu.
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Setting the filetype can also be done with a |modeline|, so that the
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file will be highlighted each time you edit it. For example, this
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line can be used in a Makefile (put it near the start or end of the
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file): >
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# vim: syntax=make
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< You might know how to detect the file type yourself. Often the file
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name extension (after the dot) can be used.
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See |new-filetype| for how to tell Vim to detect that file type.
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- There is no highlighting for your file type.
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You could try using a similar file type by manually setting it as
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mentioned above. If that isn't good enough, you can write your own
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syntax file, see |mysyntaxfile|.
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Or the colors could be wrong:
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- The colored text is very hard to read.
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Vim guesses the background color that you are using. If it is black
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(or another dark color) it will use light colors for text. If it is
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white (or another light color) it will use dark colors for text. If
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Vim guessed wrong the text will be hard to read. To solve this, set
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the 'background' option. For a dark background: >
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:set background=dark
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< And for a light background: >
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:set background=light
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< Make sure you put this _before_ the ":syntax enable" command,
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otherwise the colors will already have been set. You could do
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":syntax reset" after setting 'background' to make Vim set the default
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colors again.
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- The colors are wrong when scrolling bottom to top.
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Vim doesn't read the whole file to parse the text. It starts parsing
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wherever you are viewing the file. That saves a lot of time, but
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sometimes the colors are wrong. A simple fix is hitting CTRL-L. Or
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scroll back a bit and then forward again.
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For a real fix, see |:syn-sync|. Some syntax files have a way to make
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it look further back, see the help for the specific syntax file. For
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example, |tex.vim| for the TeX syntax.
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==============================================================================
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*06.3* Different colors *:syn-default-override*
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If you don't like the default colors, you can select another color scheme. In
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the GUI use the Edit/Color Scheme menu. You can also type the command: >
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:colorscheme evening
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"evening" is the name of the color scheme. There are several others you might
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want to try out. Look in the directory $VIMRUNTIME/colors.
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When you found the color scheme that you like, add the ":colorscheme" command
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to your |vimrc| file.
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You could also write your own color scheme. This is how you do it:
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1. Select a color scheme that comes close. Copy this file to your own Vim
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directory. For Unix, this should work: >
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!mkdir ~/.vim/colors
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!cp $VIMRUNTIME/colors/morning.vim ~/.vim/colors/mine.vim
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<
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This is done from Vim, because it knows the value of $VIMRUNTIME.
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2. Edit the color scheme file. These entries are useful:
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term attributes in a B&W terminal
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cterm attributes in a color terminal
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ctermfg foreground color in a color terminal
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ctermbg background color in a color terminal
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gui attributes in the GUI
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guifg foreground color in the GUI
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guibg background color in the GUI
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For example, to make comments green: >
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:highlight Comment ctermfg=green guifg=green
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<
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Attributes you can use for "cterm" and "gui" are "bold" and "underline".
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If you want both, use "bold,underline". For details see the |:highlight|
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command.
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3. Tell Vim to always use your color scheme. Put this line in your |vimrc|: >
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colorscheme mine
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If you want to see what the most often used color combinations look like, use
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this command: >
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:runtime syntax/colortest.vim
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You will see text in various color combinations. You can check which ones are
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readable and look nice.
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==============================================================================
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*06.4* With colors or without colors
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Displaying text in color takes a lot of effort. If you find the displaying
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too slow, you might want to disable syntax highlighting for a moment: >
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:syntax clear
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When editing another file (or the same one) the colors will come back.
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*:syn-off*
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If you want to stop highlighting completely use: >
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:syntax off
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This will completely disable syntax highlighting and remove it immediately for
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all buffers.
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*:syn-manual*
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If you want syntax highlighting only for specific files, use this: >
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:syntax manual
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This will enable the syntax highlighting, but not switch it on automatically
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when starting to edit a buffer. To switch highlighting on for the current
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buffer, set the 'syntax' option: >
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:set syntax=ON
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<
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==============================================================================
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*06.5* Printing with colors *syntax-printing*
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In the MS-Windows version you can print the current file with this command: >
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:hardcopy
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You will get the usual printer dialog, where you can select the printer and a
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few settings. If you have a color printer, the paper output should look the
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same as what you see inside Vim. But when you use a dark background the
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colors will be adjusted to look good on white paper.
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There are several options that change the way Vim prints:
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'printdevice'
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'printheader'
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'printfont'
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'printoptions'
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To print only a range of lines, use Visual mode to select the lines and then
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type the command: >
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v100j:hardcopy
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"v" starts Visual mode. "100j" moves a hundred lines down, they will be
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highlighted. Then ":hardcopy" will print those lines. You can use other
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commands to move in Visual mode, of course.
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This also works on Unix, if you have a PostScript printer. Otherwise, you
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will have to do a bit more work. You need to convert the text to HTML first,
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and then print it from a web browser.
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Convert the current file to HTML with this command: >
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:TOhtml
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In case that doesn't work: >
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:source $VIMRUNTIME/syntax/2html.vim
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You will see it crunching away, this can take quite a while for a large file.
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Some time later another window shows the HTML code. Now write this somewhere
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(doesn't matter where, you throw it away later):
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>
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:write main.c.html
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Open this file in your favorite browser and print it from there. If all goes
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well, the output should look exactly as it does in Vim. See |2html.vim| for
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details. Don't forget to delete the HTML file when you are done with it.
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Instead of printing, you could also put the HTML file on a web server, and let
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others look at the colored text.
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==============================================================================
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*06.6* Further reading
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|usr_44.txt| Your own syntax highlighted.
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|syntax| All the details.
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==============================================================================
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Next chapter: |usr_07.txt| Editing more than one file
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Copyright: see |manual-copyright| vim:tw=78:ts=8:ft=help:norl:
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