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I am very new to R-Studio. I was used to RGui, where there was no syntax highlight and the letters were very contrasty:

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In R-Studio, the letters seem to be very dim, even the "black ones" doesn't seem as black as in RGui:

enter image description here

I don't have a clue how to change the colors (do you?) so I decided to turn off the syntax highlight completely. But I haven't found any way to do it. I tried Tools / Global Options, Appearance and Code Editing, but haven't found anything to change colors or turn off syntax highlighting.

Tomas
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  • If none of the themes in Rstudio suit you, you could try Eclipse+StatET or ESS where customization is better done. Have you tried another computer screen? – Roman Luštrik Feb 10 '15 at 09:55
  • @Roman 1) and this Eclipse+StatET will work with the R console and plots as well? I need at least the functionality of RGui. 2) no i've only compared these on my laptop but that's where I need to work. – Tomas Feb 10 '15 at 10:17
  • This is my workspace a few years ago. https://danganothererror.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/eclipse.jpg Graphics are bottom right (tab), but can be placed anywhere. – Roman Luštrik Feb 10 '15 at 10:35
  • I don't have admin rights and can't test right now, but you could probably switch off syntax highlighting completely by editing the `r_highlight.html` file. – Roland Feb 10 '15 at 14:25

2 Answers2

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I don't know of a way to turn off syntax highlighting completely. But it is possible to choose a different theme. Go to Tools - Global Options - Appearance and try the various settings for Editor theme. Maybe changing the font or font size could also improve readability.

Another option is to turn off syntax highlighting in a open file. In the lower right corner of the editor window, you should see R Script (or something else, if you are not currently editing an R Script) with two little arrows next to it: Change language for syntax highlighting

When you click it, you can choose the language to use for syntax highlighting. If you pick Text File, there should be no highlighting at all. But you will have to redo this step whenever you load a file. At least, when you keep a file open in the editor and close RStudio, the setting will be kept when you start RStudio the next time.

Stibu
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  • Thanks Stibu. Unfortunatelly I don't like the default themes and I don't see any way to customize the themes, or is there? Thanks for the workaround with the `Text file`, but it would be annoying to do it for each new file. – Tomas Feb 10 '15 at 09:40
  • I must say I start to be disappointed by R-studio. I supposed it to be user friendly and now I see it is not and look back to the old nice RGui. But I need the [autosave feature and it doesn't seem to be present in RGui](http://stackoverflow.com/q/28428038/684229). – Tomas Feb 10 '15 at 09:44
  • I fear that the themes can not be customized. I have found an old [Question on the RStudio Support forum regarding this issue](https://support.rstudio.com/hc/communities/public/questions/200671467-Customize-syntax-highlighting). There, they announce the themes, but the first sentence still let's me hope that they intend to do more. – Stibu Feb 10 '15 at 09:54
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I'm afraid you can't turn off syntax highlighting. There is only option to show syntax highlighting in console input. But you can still change the colors :)

Tools -> Global Options -> Appearance -> Editor Theme

bartektartanus
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  • 1) There is no `Tools / Appearance` - you probably mean `Tools / Global Options / Appearance`? 2) I've already tried that, but none of those themes is what I want. And I didn't see any way to customize the themes. – Tomas Feb 10 '15 at 09:37