How to add syntax highlighting to markdown code blocks

Maybe I’m just late to the party, but the other day I learned how to add syntax highlighting in markdown code blocks – and it was almost life changing! Ok, I might be exaggerating a little bit – but it do make your code snippets more readable. 😁 And a lot of developer communities accept markdown in comments (and in posts) like dev.to, github etc.

Since I’m so excited about this I thought I should share it! And hopefully some of you will learn something new today 😀

Adding syntax highlighting is really easy, the only thing you have to do is add the programming-language after the first three back-ticks.

Like this:

And here on dev.to the above markdown will be displayed like this:

Below is an empty codeblock

Below is a codeblock with javascript - without syntax highlighting

const myFunction = () => {
    console.log("This is my function");
}

Below is a codeblock with javascript - with syntax highlighting

const myFunction = () => {
    console.log("This is my function");
}

Below is a codeblock with powershell syntax highlighting

Connect-PnPOnline "yourtenantURL" -Interactive

Get-PnPTenantAppCatalogUrl

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Also, if you have any feedback or questions, please let me know in the comments below.

Thank you for reading, and happy coding! 🙂

/Eli

Comments

[Matheus Alves]

Not working for me, and I really don't know why. ...

console.log("I'm applying this technique to this comment to check if it is going to work here")

[Matheus Alves]

Works for comments but it isn't working for my post...

[Matheus Alves]

I think it's a bug. I tested it with a published post and I can see the it applies for both preview and post publish actions. Now, it doesn't work for a draft I'm working on.