Enable Vim Syntax Highlighting By Default

Question

I know how to turn syntax highlighting on and off in vim by running this in the editor:

:syntax on/off

But I want syntax highlighting to be enabled by default, so I don't have to turn it on every time I run vim.

How do I do this?

Solution 1

Edit your $HOME/.vimrc (Unix/Linux/OSX) or $HOME/_vimrc (Windows) to include the following line:

syntax on

EDIT

If your syntax highlighting doesn't work when you start Vim, you probably don't have a $HOME/.vimrc or $HOME/_vimrc (known collectively as vimrc from now on). In that case, you have two options:

• Create an empty vimrc.
• Copy vimrc_example.vim as your vimrc (recommended, thanks @oyenamit). You can find vimrc_example.vim in the runtime directory.

The location of the runtime directory varies between operating systems:

• On my system (Arch Linux, and Mac, thanks @totophe), it's in /usr/share/vim/vim73.
• On Windows, it's in \Program Files\Vim\vim73.

Solution 2

Also, to highlight the syntax of a Specific File TYPE (or programming language extension), you can use following commands, while file is already opened in Vim and you want to try syntax highlighting on the fly:

:set filetype=php

OR shortcut:

:se ft=php

Above commands will change the syntax-highlighting for currently opened file as it should be for PHP code.

Solution 3

Uncommenting the "syntax on" in vimrc file.

Move to the directory,

cd /etc/vim/

vim vimrc

now search "syntax" and uncomment it. Save it and reopen the file in vim.

Solution 4

For anyone that gets here because of TurnKeyLinux using vim-tiny which doesn't have the syntax module enabled try this article to install full vim

http://www.turnkeylinux.org/forum/support/20140108/solved-bash-command-not-found-after-replacing-package

tl;dr

# apt-get remove vim-tiny
# apt-get install vim
# hash vim
# vim

Solution 5

I also found that this is one of the lessons in vimtutor.

To find it, you can type command vimtutor in your Terminal (I used on Mac), and scroll down to see if there is a lesson called CREATE A STARTUP SCRIPT (for me it was Lesson 7.2), where it describes how to set up an initial vimrc file.

View more solutions

Comments

[lilroo]

I cant find .vimrc, im using a mac running Lion. I can find .viminfo

[Ilmo Euro]

If there isn't one, you can create it. Just type :e ~/.vimrc to vim, type in the line and save (:w).

[oyenamit]

@lilroo While this solves your problem, I would advise you against creating a vimrc from scratch. Instead, pickup the example vimrc from the following location: /Applications/MacVim.app/Contents/Resources/vim/runtime/vimr‌​c_example.vim. Copy this file to your $HOME as .vimrc. It switches on a lot of basic stuff for you automatically (syntax, search highlighting, backup etc). You can then tweak it based on your needs.

[Sonique]

Is there any difference between syntax on and syntax enable?

[Ilmo Euro]

@Sonique syntax enable keeps your color settings, syntax on overrides them (:help :syn-on).

[totophe]

The Mac folder is /usr/share/vim/vim73/. The one in the response supposes you have installed an extra application.

[Jeremy Davis]

FWIW as of v14.0, you can just install vim and it all works as you'd expect (regardless of whether you uninstall vim-tiny or not). It was a bug in the way vim-tiny was configured to run as 'vim'. Now it updates the binary path properly...

[forzagreen]

Make sure you add syntax on to /etc/vim/vimrc file (sudo required), to enable syntax on system-wide files (e.g. config files at /etc/)

[Qback]

Now even ~/.vimrc is colored :)

[Ender phan]

Best way for me. Tks. If you don't have syntax just add, syntax enable. Then source vimrc. You got it permanently for later use

[Nebbles]

I have trouble with this. Running the tutorial has been fine although I don't have a $VIMRUNTIME set so I have no idea where this vimrc_example.vim is stored.

[Aron Hoogeveen]

The above method is especially helpful for when you have an unsaved file that you want to set the syntax highlighting for (e.g. when you use vim as a notepad with markdown)