Sublime Forum

Printing from sublime

#113

Printing would be great for me too please!! Colours and Italics!!

Many thanks

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#114

This has been brought up over and over; although Sublime doesn’t have a built in print feature, use of the ExportHTML plugin is more that a workaround and offers numerous benefits, since modern browsers have nice inbuilt print support, with zooming, export to PDF etc. etc… The other benefit to the intermediate step of having your code nicely formatted in HTML is that you can easily postprocess and format before printing if you should wish.

Given the flexibility of this solution I imagine Jon just doesn’t see the value in implementing a dedicated print feature.

As a side note, I don’t understand why so many are put out by this. I too need to print code from time to time and don’t see the above as restrictive in any way.

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#115

I see this just as qgates.
When you really need a printout? In most cases we store files to cloud or USB-stick. The last time I printed a script, that was about 10 years ago.
And consider that a text editor is no office software.

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#116

[quote]“It’s still a low priority, at least until more people chime in saying this is something they need.”
JPS 2009[/quote]

[quote]“This has been brought up over and over.”
QGATES 2014[/quote]

[quote]“I’m guessing it’s never going to happen, regardless of customer demand. After all, there are all sorts of half-arsed, clutzy workarounds.”
ME 2015[/quote]

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#117

6 years and still no support for printing.

How many signatures do I need on a petition to get some developer focus on it? :stuck_out_tongue:

Other than that though: Fantastic product. Best text editor out there, lots of gimmicks in there to make coding faster and make it look flashy when you are coding. Very well done!! Just need some printing so I can uninstall Notepad++ once and for all!!!

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#118

At the risk of repetition, adding printing support isn’t trivial in Sublime, due to its platform independent nature and design choices to use homegrown libraries for most of the core. If Jon felt that this would make a real difference to sales and whatnot I’m sure it’d move up the priority pile. I get the sense that Jon’s more keen to spend his time on more ground-breaking features eg. the substantially improved regex parser for syntax coloring and ‘codesense’ capabilities.

I’ve been quoted above, but my repeated posts on this subject have also pointed out that the use of ExportHTML is straightforward, has a number of real benefits over native printing (like the ability to easily restyle/reformat your print) and few (if any) drawbacks. I do remember someone pointing out a valid drawback in the past, but it was such an edge-case that I’ve already forgotten. So apart from the idea that it’s ‘clutzy’ and extra couple of mouseclicks, can anyone point out a good reason why the ExportHTML approach is problematic?

:smile:

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#119

This thread looks to have started in 2008. It’s now 2015. 7 (going on 8) years have past and even though it is on the “todo” list and constant requests for for us to just have a feature that comes with 99% of other editing programs, we still cannot simply print.

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#120

Chiming in to request printing cabability. tired of copying to notepad to print.

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#121

Just to note, Atom does not print, neither does Visual Studio Code or Adobe Brackets, Vim does not print natively, neither does Emacs. So, Sublime Text is not that unique in not supporting printing.

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#122

I used Sublime Text as my single text editor. It also lets me code, but I don’t only use it for that. If I open it to quickly write down a grocery list, instructions for something I need to do, or any other .txt document I have saved with similar content, I want to be able to print that out and take it with me. Like every other text editor in existence. Sublime Text shouldn’t be a coding only utility when everything else about it makes it an excellent text editor - aside from this. Up until now, I’ve had to copy / paste between ST and Word.

I’m taking a look at some alternatives now. But if ST is meant to not be a text editor in any way, it should advertise itself as only a programming tool. Alternatively, if the authors want it to be used as a text editor also, they need to include this basic feature that’s part of every text editor.

I bought ST, as a text editor+, because I had stupidly assumed it would have the ability to print. I was completely shocked when I discovered it didn’t.

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#123

Here’s my solution, based on all of the posts I read. I couldn’t get any of the plugin methods to work, but ended up with something “simple” anyway. I’m using Windows and I only care about direct text printing, without any kind of formatting - I just want to print the straight text from ST to my default printer.

  1. I downloaded DOSPrinter.
  2. I created Print.sublime-build in my Packages\User directory:

{ "cmd": "C:\\Tools\\DOSPrinter.exe", "$file"] }
When I want to print, I just make sure I’m using “Print” as my Build System and hit Ctrl-B.

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#124

I’ve been using Sublime Text 3 for over a year, and I think it’s great. The lack of the ability to print, however, is crazy for a high-quality commercial text editor. I’d like to add a vote for “add the ability to print in the next version in Sublime Text.”

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#125

Export To HTML works so well that this feature really isn’t even needed anymore. I requested this years ago but ctrl-shift-p, typing export to html (or as many of those letters as you need before the command shows up) and hitting return isn’t difficult.

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#126

I didn’t know about the ExportToHTML extension. I just tried it, and it is indeed very good. It certainly makes a built-in print function seem like less of a priority for Sublime Text.

However, it still feels clunky compared to a simple File > Print (or cmd + P), and it generates temporary files every times you use it. And I think most people do expect a simple print feature in a text editor.

Someone above listed several free editors that can’t print, and said that therefore a lack of printing is not unprecedented. However, many of the free editors people use before seeking out a more professional editor can print: OS X’s TextEdit, Windows Notepad, Notepad++, or Linux’s GEdit. Furthermore, I don’t know of any paid editor in the price range of Sublime Text that can’t print (for example, UltraEdit, which is also cross platform). Thus, most people are surprised to find they need to seek out a plugin to do something seemingly simple. Even though ExportToHTML is nice, I still think a $70 text editor should be able to print out-of-the box. It would feel so much more professional.

I have a similar feeling about having to manually edit the JSON settings files. Why isn’t there a proper UI for settings?

Despite the long post, I consider these minor complaints. Sublime Text is awesome, which is why I went ahead and paid for it.

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#127

That is an assumption.

I have never had the desire to print text with Sublime Text, or any other “text editor” for that manner, and I am sure that I don’t stand alone with this.

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#128

You’re correct that I made an assumption. I haven’t polled every user of text editing software to find out if more than half expect to be able to print. I apologize.

However, based on the number of people who have mentioned it in this thread, and the existence of numerous other threads about the feature, I think it’s fair to say that many people expect it, and I was simply adding my vote. I agree that it’s not a top priority; like most people, I’d rather see bug fixes or performance enhancements, as I don’t often print.

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#129

There have been a few times where I wanted to print, but it is honestly a pretty minor thing. The export to HTML feature is more than enough for my purposes.

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#130

I vote for printing from the file menu. I do use Export HTML, but I couldn’t get it to work at first.
I had to resort to Ctrl-A, right-click, copy, bring up Notepad++, right-click, paste, then print.
I got tired of this, so I went back to Export HTML and finally got it to work. But it’s still a kludge.
I tried another printing package as well, but I never did get it to work.
I want the real thing. If UltraEdit and Visual Studio (et alia) have it, then Sublime Text should have it also.

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#131

Being able to print or print to pdf would be equally amazing :slight_smile:
You got my vote !

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#132

Went to purchase, stopped when I realized no printing.

I hardly ever print, but heck if I’m going to buy something that can’t do it.

Given time I’ll implement one of the solutions posted here, but…

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