---
title: Rouge
---

## Syntax Highlighting With Rouge

[Rouge](https://github.com/jneen/rouge) (MIT licensed) is a fast syntax highlighter that is
compatible with stylesheets designed for Pygments.

To use Rouge, set the option ['syntax_highlighter'](../options.html#option-syntax-highlighter) to
'rouge' and make sure that Rouge is available. The Rouge library can be installed, e.g., via
Rubygems by running `gem install rouge`.

Note that since Rouge 2.0 has breaking changes, Kramdown swaps formatter classes depending on
Rouge version. By default, `Rouge::Formatters::HTMLLegacy` is used with Rouge 2.0 or later
instead of `Rouge::Formatters::HTML` which is the default formatter with Rouge 1.x.

The Rouge syntax highlighter supports the following keys of the option
['syntax_highlighter_opts'](../options.html#option-syntax-highlighter-opts):

default_lang
: The default language that should be used when no language is set.

guess_lang
: If no specific language or a default language is set, guess the language.

formatter
: A custom Rouge formatter class that should be used instead of the following default formatter
  (Rogue 1.x: `Rouge::Formatters::HTML` / Rogue 2.x: `Rouge::Formatters::HTMLLegacy`).

  If this setting is a string, it needs to contain the name of a constant under the
  `Rouge::Formatters` namespace.

disable
: If set to `true`, highlighting with Rouge will be disabled.

  Should probably not be set globally but inside the 'span' or 'block' options.

span
: A key-value map of options that are only used when syntax highlighting code spans.

block
: A key-value map of options that are only used when syntax highlighting code blocks.

Furthermore all Rouge options (e.g. 'line_numbers') can be set directly on the
'syntax_highlighter_opts' option (where they apply to code spans *and* code blocks) and/or on the
'span'/'block' keys.
