How do I prettily print out a git-diff output?

Question

for my upcoming Bachelor thesis, I am required to print out the git-diff output for the appendix of the paper. I really like the output of git diff --color-words, but I have absolutely no idea how to bring this - colored and with line numbers included - to a piece of paper on my Mac. I know there are tools like SourceTree, but even with those I seem not able to make a pretty print out of the single file's diffs.

Well, I am pretty sure that I cannot be the only one with this problem, and I found some suggested ansi2html solutions, but they to not seem to work with my version of git (1.7.10.2). I also thought about simply printing the Github commit page (which is really pretty and kind of looks like what I need), but the browser will automatically remove all coloring and formatting when I am trying to print it.

Thanks for your help!

Answer 1

Use aha. You can install it in ubuntu with sudo apt-get install aha. Also see https://github.com/theZiz/aha.

$ git diff --color-words | aha > index.html $ firefox index.html 

Firefox should then be able to print it in color. Check out aha --help for some other cool options.

Answer 2

I just tried an npm package hosted on Github: pretty-diff

You install it via npm and run it as you would with git-diff, for example:

pretty-diff HEAD^ 

A new browser window opens and you can save it as html. I've tried to open it again in a different browser and colors are still showing. You can also use your github account to create gists and share them.