Sublime 3 makes installing syntax highlighting easy with “Package Control”

Ari Sweedler
2 min readFeb 26, 2018

TL;DR:

⌘-⇧-P

Package Control: Install Package

Choose a package, restart Sublime.

If you develop using languages that require strange or uncommon syntax highlighting schemes, then you might feel at a loss. Sublime automatically supports syntax highlighting for many common languages, but not for more obscure languages. But fear not, the plugin Package Control is here to save the day.

The Package Control plugin allows you to easily install plugins, such as syntax highlighting bundles. All commands made available in Sublime after installing Package Control start with the prefix Package Control:. Makes sense.

All I have to do in order to install a new syntax scheme is open Sublime’s Command Palette (⌘-⇧-P). and issue the following command: Package Control: Install Package.

Using the Package Control plugin’s suite of commands

The Package Control plugin will open up a menu of all the available packages, and I’ll just type in the package I want

Now I can choose whatever package I want to install — easy!

Once the package is installed, it’ll no longer be searchable in the menu opened up by Package Control: Install Package, but don’t worry, that means it’s installed! Restart Sublime and you can select your newly downloaded package from the syntax menu in the bottom right corner of the window. (Or, View>Syntax>[your new package])

And just like that! You have syntax highlighting for whatever you want installed.

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