Appearance preferences

The Appearance preferences let you set the appearance of documents, including font, line height and the colors.

Font
You can set the font type and size for the text view.
Anti-aliasing
With this option selected, CotEditor displays text anti-aliased.
Ligatures
With this option selected, the standard ligature rules are applied. Otherwise, all ligatures are disabled. Ligature is a typography feature joining specific characters as a single glyph.
Line height
You can adjust line height with a value indicating the number of lines. The range you can set is from 1.0 to 10.0 (lines).
Current line
You can set the appearance of current line in the text view.
Change background color
With this option turned on, the line in which caret exists will be highlighted with another background color. The “Current Line” color in the selected theme will be used for this highlight.
Cursor
You can change the cursor style in the main editor.
Invisibles
You can transform invisible characters — space, tab, line ending, control character — into alternative symbols in order to make them viewable. Select the symbol you wish to use from the drop-down menu.
The default font you set in the Appearance pane applies to these symbols as well.
Appearance
You can set the document window appearance regardless of the system appearance state.
Theme
You can manage the coloring themes for the text view. See About theme for about theme customization.
Theme list
Select your default theme for the text view.
New (+ icon)
Create a new theme.
Delete (- icon)
Remove the selected theme. You cannot remove theme that are bundled with CotEditor.
Other Actions (gear icon)
Duplicate “Theme Name”
Duplicate the selected theme in order to make your own one.
Restore “Theme Name”
Restore the selected theme to default. This action is available only for bundled themes.
Export “Theme Name”
Export the theme file made from the selected theme. You can use this exported file to use it on another computer. To use the exported file, do Import.
Import
This allows you to use a theme created on another computer. After selecting Import, choose the theme file to install.
Theme edit view
You can edit the selected theme.
Basic
The configurations for basic coloring other than syntax coloring. Included are the colors of text, cursor, invisibles, background, current line and selection. If “Use system color” check box for “Selection” is turned on, the user setting in the System Preferences > General > Highlight Color is used for the selection highlighting.
Syntax
You can set the colors for syntax highlighting.
The code elements colors are: Keywords, Commands, Types, Attributes, Variables, Values, Numbers, Strings, Characters, Comments.
"Enable syntax coloring" in the Format preferences should be checked to apply these colors.

See also