Add syntax highlighting to your Jekyll site with Rouge

25 Mar 2017 ᛫ 3 min read

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Syntax highlighting is important (especially for programming blogs) because it improves the readability of posts. It allows readers to quickly locate the code-snippets (which are usually why people visit your page in the first place) they need.

Rouge is a pure-ruby syntax highlighter and has been the default highlighter for Jekyll since Jekyll 3 (replacing pygments). You can add syntax highlihting using rouge to your Jekyll site in just a few steps.

Install the kramdown and rouge gems

Make sure that the kramdown and rouge (that’s rouge not rogue) gems are installed.

gem install kramdown rouge

Edit your _config.yml settings.

Add the following lines to your _config.yml file if they’re not there already.

markdown: kramdown

kramdown:
  input: GFM
  syntax_highlighter: rouge

If that doesn’t work, you can try:

markdown: kramdown
highlighter: rouge

By experience, my build times when using the first option are usually faster.

Create a css file for the highlighting style you want

Rouge comes built-in with rougify, a command-line tool that converts a style theme to a css file.

You can see the available themes by entering:

rougify help style

As of rouge 1.11.1, the available themes are:

base16, base16.dark, base16.monokai, base16.monokai.light, base16.solarized, base16.solarized.dark, colorful, github, gruvbox, gruvbox.light, molokai, monokai, monokai.sublime, thankful_eyes

For example, if you want to use the monokai theme, you first create a css file in your css folder using rougify:

rougify style monokai > /path/to/css/file.css

The usual directory for the css files is assets/css while the usual name for the css file is syntax.css so from your root you can type:

rougify style monokai > assets/css/syntax.css

Then don’t forget to include the stylesheet in your HTML template (usually within <head></head>):

<link href="path-to-syntax-highlighter-stylesheet" rel="stylesheet">

If you saved the syntax highlighter stylesheet as assets/css/syntax.css then you can add the following in your HTML template:

<link href="/css/syntax.css" rel="stylesheet" >

Add syntax highlighting to your posts

Here’s the fun part.

If you’re using markdown to create your posts, you can add syntax highlighting by enclosing the code-snippet using three backticks (```). Aditionally, you can set the language of the code snippet after the opening three backticks.

For example, if you want to highlight python code, you can write:

```python
def function():
  print('Yes')
```

which will be rendered as:

def function():
  print('Yes')

Or maybe you want to highlight a Ruby code-snippet:

```ruby
def function
  puts 'Yes'
```

which will be rendered as:

def function
  puts 'Yes'

You can check what languages are supported by entering:

rougify list

What if I want to show (```) in my code-blocks?

Let’s say you want to show ``` in your code-block like I did in #4 above.

What you need to do is indent the ``` in your markdown file by at least 4 spaces.

The line below is indented by at least 4 spaces.

    ```python
    def function():
      print('Yes')
    ```

It will then render to:

```python
def function():
  print('Yes')
```

How can I make code-blocks or code-snippets work inside GFM (Github Flavored Markdown) lists?

Codeblocks can sometimes break ordered lists (i.e. the list always returns to 1). To prevent this, you can do the following.

Case 1: If you won’t put a linebreak between the list item and the code-block, have the code-block aligned with the indentation of the line item.

1. Number 1
```python
print("Hello World")
```

2. Number 2
```ruby
puts 'Hello World'
```

3. Number 3
```c
printf("Hello World");
```

which renders to:

  1. Number 1
    print("Hello World")
    
  2. Number 2
    puts 'Hello World'
    
  3. Number 3
    printf("Hello World");
    

Case 2: If you’ll add a linebreak after the line item, have the code-block indented at least 4 spaces from the line item.

1. Number 1

    ```python
    print("Hello World")
    ```

2. Number 2

    ```ruby
    puts 'Hello World'
    ```

3. Number 3

    ```c
    printf("Hello World");
    ```

which renders to:

  1. Number 1

     print("Hello World")
    
  2. Number 2

     puts 'Hello World'
    
  3. Number 3

     printf("Hello World");
    


And that’s all you need to start having syntax highlighting on your Jekyll site using Rouge.

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