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Displaying Code (Formatter)

The Ace Format field formatter renders a long-text field as a read-only, syntax-highlighted Ace editor on the rendered entity. It is display-only — the code cannot be edited on the page.

Supported field types

  • text_long
  • text_with_summary

Configure the formatter

  1. Go to the entity's Manage display screen — for example Structure → Content types → Article → Manage display.
  2. For the long-text field (e.g. Body), set the Format to Ace Format.
  3. Click the gear icon to set the theme, syntax, height, width, font size, line numbers, print margin, show invisibles and word wrap.
  4. Save.

Result

When the entity is viewed, the field value is shown inside a read-only Ace editor with the configured theme and language highlighting. The underlying markup is kept in a hidden textarea and rendered by Ace, so visitors see neatly formatted code rather than raw text or parsed HTML.

When to use the formatter vs. the filter

  • Use the formatter when an entire field holds code/markup to display as code.
  • Use the filter when you want to embed one or more code snippets inside otherwise normal body text using <ace> tags.