How to get syntax highlighting in a PDF?

PDF inherently does not have any way to process the text and highlight the syntax. This has to be done in a word processing software and then it can be exported as a PDF.

I use the open source Libre Office Writer for all such things. To get automatic syntax highlighting:

1. Use the Code Highlighter extension for Libre Office which uses Python and a special python package called pygments to automatically perform syntax highlighting
2. If you use Visual Studio code you only need to copy paste your code into Libre Office Writer and it comes with all syntax highlighting. (This is what I use)

I use the beautiful Monokai theme in VSCode but when I have to copy paste things I switch to a white theme. Otherwise I’ll end up with something that looks like this 👇

After that it’s just a matter of exporting as PDF:

If however you use Notepad++

You can simply click on the copy RTF to clipboard option and then go back and paste it into a word document.