# How to turn off highlighting in DrRacket

**URL:** <https://racket.discourse.group/t/how-to-turn-off-highlighting-in-drracket/2041>\
**Category:** Questions & Answers\
**Created:** [June 25, 2023, 4:47pm UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/how-to-turn-off-highlighting-in-drracket/2041 "2023-06-25T16:47:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Watt](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/watt/32/1247_2.png) [@Watt](https://racket.discourse.group/u/Watt)\
**Post date:** [June 25, 2023, 4:47pm UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/how-to-turn-off-highlighting-in-drracket/2041/1 "2023-06-25T16:47:51Z")

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I've just started using DrRacket. When I type a closing parenthesis, the opening one is highlighted in blue for maybe a second or half a second. When my cursor is at the end of a parenthesis, there is a grey background for everything inside the parenthesis my cursor is at the end of.

Is there a way to completely turn off all highlighting? I have changed the default grey background to be white, so I don't see it. But I'm not sure how to prevent my cursor from disappearing when I type a closing paren to highlight the opening paren.

I found text mode, which works for everything I've mentioned, but then I lose having different colors for text, numbers, operands, etc.

Thank you 🙂 I really want to remove all background highlighting, as I find it distracting and not helpful.

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**Author:** ![gus-massa](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/gus-massa/32/507_2.png) [@gus-massa](https://racket.discourse.group/u/gus-massa)\
**Post date:** [June 25, 2023, 8:12pm UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/how-to-turn-off-highlighting-in-drracket/2041/2 "2023-06-25T20:12:34Z")

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In the menu: `Edit` \> `Preferences...` \> `Editing` \> `Racket` and you will get 4 options to tweak.

(You should probably disable the first and the last one, the second one looks too useful to be disabled.)

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**Author:** ![matteo-daddio](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/matteo-daddio/32/1245_2.png) [@matteo-daddio](https://racket.discourse.group/u/matteo-daddio)\
**Post date:** [June 26, 2023, 1:18pm UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/how-to-turn-off-highlighting-in-drracket/2041/3 "2023-06-26T13:18:04Z")

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Are you sure? I couldn’t live without it.  
I set the highlighting to a vey light grey, so it’s more comfortable.

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**Author:** ![hendrikboom3](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/hendrikboom3/32/2748_2.png) [@hendrikboom3](https://racket.discourse.group/u/hendrikboom3)\
**Post date:** [June 26, 2023, 3:25pm UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/how-to-turn-off-highlighting-in-drracket/2041/4 "2023-06-26T15:25:09Z")

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Highlighting is the only thing I've found that makes parenthesis matching tolerable despite the Lots pf Irritating single Parentheses syndrome.

-- hendrik