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Tip 111 Previous Next Created: September 7, 2001 Complexity: intermediate Author: Aric Blumer Version: 6.0

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I have found it undesirable to use :hardcopy directly because it uses the current syntax highlighting to determine how to print the text. For example, I like to print comments in italics, but I don't like italic fonts on the screen. This tip will show you how to set up a colorscheme for printing and use it only when you print.

I copied an existing colorscheme to ~/.vim/colors/print.vim, and changed all the lines like this:

highlight Normal ctermbg=DarkGrey ctermfg=White guifg=White guibg=grey20

to this:

highlight clear Normal

Then I set the syntax groups how I wanted them to be printed on the printer:

highlight Comment term=italic cterm=italic gui=italic
highlight Constant term=bold cterm=bold gui=bold
etc....

I then defined the following command in my .vimrc file:

command! -nargs=* Hardcopy call DoMyPrint("<args>")

And, finally, I defined this function in my .vimrc:

function DoMyPrint(args)
 let colorsave=g:colors_name
 color print
 exec "hardcopy ".a:args
 exec 'color '.colorsave
endfunction

After this is complete, you can do:

:Hardcopy > /tmp/out.ps

or just

:Hardcopy

(Note the capital H)

[edit] Comments

This does, BTW, assume that you are already using a colorscheme.

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