Does anyone know of a simple way to produce the PostScript corresponding to a syntax-highlighted version of a source file that can be piped directly to a PostScript printer?
As the wording of the question above probably suggests, I’m looking for something that I can run from the command line. I’m thinking of an interaction like:
% syntax_highlight <SOURCE_FILE> | lp
…with command-line switches as needed, etc.
The best I’ve found so far is a Unix utility called highlight, but it has problems. The most serious of it is that it doesn’t have an option to output PostScript directly. (Since highlight does support LaTeX output, I tried to patch together a script that would automate the process of generating the PostScript file via *.tex => *.dvi => *.ps, but the visual appearance of the final result is awful, much worse than it is for the HTML file that highlight generates for the same source code input.)
Thanks!
Answers:
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Method 1
You can use vim.
vim -c hardcopy -c quit /path/to/file
This will print the file and quit immediately. By default, vim prints with syntax highlighting.
If you need to print from stdout of some command, you can do this:
cat some_file.c | vim -c hardcopy -c 'quit!' -
If you want to save the .ps for later, you can do that by adding redirection to the hardcopy command, like so:
vim -c 'hardcopy > /path/to/saved.ps' -c 'quit' /path/to/file
Vim lets you set lots of printing-related options, so you might want to see the documentation if you want to tweak it. Of course, there are lots of syntax highlighting options as well.
Method 2
There are several programs that pretty-print various programming languages to Postscript, which don’t require any third-party software to run:
If you are willing to go via LaTeX, you have more options. Going via LaTeX is mostly useful if you want to include code and something else in the same document; otherwise it’s overkill.
- highlight
- The listings package (runs on any LaTeX installation, no preprocessing required)
- lgrind
- source-highlight
Method 3
In Gedit, the standard editor for gnome, you can print to file, choose Postscript (default PDF) and mark on the third tab, to use highlightening, which is off as default, which produces a nice ps-file for me.
And Gedit has a lot of syntax files, to serve many programming languages, HTML, SQL, XML, rc-files, you name it.
Method 4
Expanding on Shawn J. Goff’s answer:
You can use the following single-line vim command to create a .ps file from within vim:
:hardcopy > %.ps
If you prefer a .pdf file, then you can do:
:hardcopy > %.ps | !ps2pdf %.ps && rm %.ps
Note:
- The
%is shorthand for the current filename, soHelloWorld.Cwill print toHelloWorld.C.psorHelloWorld.C.pdf
Additionally, to change the rendered font, set the printerfont before executing the hardcopy command. For example, to select Courier 8:
:set printerfont=Courier:h8
Putting it all together, I opted to put the following in my .vimrc file so that I can simply execute the :HardcopyPs or :HardcopyPdf command (which can also operate on a selected range within a file):
set printfont=Courier:h8 "select the font to use when printing command! -range=% HardcopyPs <line1>,<line2> hardcopy > %.ps && echo 'Created: %.ps' command! -range=% HardcopyPdf <line1>,<line2> hardcopy > %.ps | !ps2pdf %.ps && rm %.ps && echo 'Created: %.pdf'
All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0