We are pleased to announce the availability of Color Printing as a free extension for Visual Studio 2010!  By default, VS 2010 prints only in black and white; this extension restores support for printing code in color.

Installation and Setup

Installing Color Printing requires Visual Studio 2010 Pro, Premium, or Ultimate (the Express editions do not support extensions).  You should be able to simply download and install this extension from the VS Gallery or via the Tools menu->Extension Manager.

Using the Color Printing Extension

Once you’ve installed the Color Printing extension, you should be able to print as you typically would – simply use File->Print or press Ctrl+P.  No extra steps are required.  You might notice that the print dialog looks slightly different, but it should be very similar to print dialogs you would see in Visual Studio or other applications:

 

In particular, Package Builder makes it easy to add commands and UI to the VSCT incrementally – a task that’s proven somewhat challenging to many extenders. Another article, by Ty Anderson, that shows off those incremental features was published recently on DevX.com. Check it out!

You can download VSPackage Builder from the Visual Studio Gallery.