Code Highlighter 2

Tags: Calc Draw Extensions Impress Writer

last edited: 2022-11-23

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Code snippet highlighter for LibreOffice.

Description

Code Highlighter 2 allows syntax highlighting over 350 languages in LibreOffice.

Code Highlighter 2 is a fork of Code Highlighter, originally created by slgobinath but no more maintained.

Usage

• Open a LibreOffice document.
• Copy and paste the code snippet where you want it:
  • Writer: either in a text frame (preferred option), in a text box, in a table cell or as plain text;
  • Calc: either in a cell or in a text box;
  • Impress and Draw: in a text box.

• Select the text or the object containing the code snippet.
• Format -> Code Highlighter 2 -> Highlight Code:
  • in the dialog, select the language and style.
• Format -> Code Highlighter 2 -> Highlight Code (previous settings):
  • does not open a dialog, but applies previous settings (persistent also between restarts of LO).
• Format -> Code Highlighter 2 -> Update selection:
  • update an already highlighted snippet using the formatting informations stored with it.

Tips

• Multiselection is supported: you can select several code snippets at the same time, even from different languages (choose "automatic" in this last case).
• Not all language aliases that are valide names for Code Highlighter 2 appear in the option dialog: if you don't find a language, try anyway to type its name in the combobox (try for example with "R" or with "Pascal").
• Click the "More..." button to access line numbers options or character styles options.
• Uncheck line numbering option to remove unwanted line numbers, due for example to copy-pasted code.
• The extension contains two styles that are not part of Pygments: libreoffice-classic and libreoffice-dark, that make use of LibreOffice IDE color schemes (classic mode and dark mode). Code Highlighter also adds a "LibreOffice Basic" language, which is not a Pygments lexer but a convenient shortcut to VB.net lexer, which is perfect for parsing LOBasic.

General behaviour

• Highlighting is applied to the selected object, that can be plain text, text frame, text shape, text table cell or calc cell.
• Highlight properties are hard-formatted for each token, parsed according to the choosen Pygments lexer (aka coding language). If someone prefers instead to make use of character styles, select the corresponding option in the dialog box (from v2.3.0, Writer only).
• When cursor is inside a text shape or a Calc cell, highlighting is applied to the whole shape or cell even if only a part of the text is selected.
• When cursor is inside a text frame, a text table cell or an already highlighted plain text*, highlighting is only applied to the selected text if any, otherwise to the whole frame, cell or plain text snippet.
• When highlighting applies to the selected text, it formats the entire paragraphs, even if selection starts after the paragraph start or ends before paragraph end, unless the selection is an inline snippet.
• Choosing "Update selection", the program will update highlighted code keeping the already applied options. If nothing is selected and the cursor is inside an already highlighted block, the whole block will be updated*.

_{* To allow code update, Code Highlighter 2 stores the formatting options in the document as User Defined Attributes. If you're not comfortable with that, you can disable it by setting the 'StoreOptionsWithSnippet' option to 0 in advanced options (Options-> Advanced-> Open Expert Configuration-> ooo.ext.code-highlighter.Registry).}

Dependencies

Linux users may need to first install the LibreOffice script provider for python.

For Ubuntu and derivatives, close all the LibreOffice products and do

sudo apt-get install libreoffice-script-provider-python

Other Linux systems may not need this package. If you encounter any problems after installing the extension, please check whether you have any similar package.

Any problems?

If you find any bugs, please report them at GitHub Issues.

Screenshots

Dialog:

Result:

Homepage: https://github.com/jmzambon/libreoffice-code-highlighter

Repository: https://github.com/jmzambon/libreoffice-code-highlighter

Release List

Release Description Compatibility Operating Systems License Release notes  
v2.4.2 New features, bug fixes and code upgrade. 6.4 Linux, Windows, macOS GPL
- Update to Pygments 2.13.0.
- Change some behaviours when using character styles.
- Store formatting options with snippets (may be disabled).
- Make code snippets updatable.
- New menu items.
- Enhanced line numbering.
- Lot of code improvements.
- Fix some typos and bugs.
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v2.3.3 New features, code enhancements and bug fixes 6.4 Linux, Windows, macOS GPL
• Add option to use character styles instead of direct formatting.
• Add pseudo-lexer for LibreOffice Basic (which is in fact a convenient shortcut to VB.net lexer) and two LibreOffice specific styles: libreoffice-classic and libreoffice-dark.
• Add support for character background color and underline.
• Allow highlighting inline snippets.
• Fix some bugs and misbehaviors.
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v2.2.3 New features, bug fixes and code upgrade. 6.4 Linux, Windows, macOS GPL
• Logging facilities.
• Support for line numbering.
• French localisation.
• Upgrade Pygments to version 2.11.2.
• Bug fixes.
• Some code rewriting.
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v2.0.1 Small fixes and upgrades 6.4 Linux, Windows, macOS GPL
• Upgrade Pygments to version 2.11.1.
• Fix error in getting lexer from some language aliases.
• Fix error in undoing text box highlighting.
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Code Highlighter 2 v2.0 - First release after forking Code Highlighter 6.4 Linux, Windows, macOS GPL
• embed Pygments
• support for text frame and table cell selection in Writer (frame selection is preferred)
• support cell selection in Calc
• show highlight operations in undo manager
• add key shortcuts (Shift+Alt+X and Alt+X)
• add Pygments icon and version in dialog box
• add error messages for unsupported selection or no selection at all
• add menu item icons
• speed up dialog opening + sorted languages and styles
• remove spelling language for highlighted code
• various little enhancements and fixes
• automatic updates
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