Prettyprint

What Does Prettyprint Mean?

In IT, to “prettyprint” something refers to the process of displaying source code or other items in a presentable and attractive way. Prettyprint can involve formatting and style implementations, as well as different types of specialty text settings to display the results of mathematical equations or code output.

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Techopedia Explains Prettyprint

Prettyprint can be done in many different ways. One of the basic implementations is code formatting, which splits blocks of code into individual code lines. Certain tools do this for various programming languages like LISP or C, making the result much more readable and conventional. Prettyprint tools may also change font sizes and styles for individual numbers or letters or pieces of text. The general idea is that results are printed clearly and in a user-friendly way. In some cases, this requires specific modifications of dense, complicated or “hairy” source code.

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Margaret Rouse

Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…