font me up plz. tia.

December 22, 2005 11:48 AM

fontfilter: What are some cool fixed-width fonts for using with terminals, code editors, etc?

I like the modern, sans-serify feel of Lucida console, but it's getting old (and feels a bit compressed). Courier new = old 'n' busted. I'd like something slick and modern looking, preferably with more space between the letters.

posted by Paris Hilton to computers & internet (22 comments total)

There are some nice selections at Proggy Fonts that you might want to look at.
posted by bcwinters at 11:54 AM on December 22, 2005

Profont

Consolas
posted by wackybrit at 11:55 AM on December 22, 2005

There's a thread with lots and lots of comments on this very topic over at Typographica. Bitstream Vera Sans Mono and Pragmata seems to be favorites.
posted by luriete at 11:57 AM on December 22, 2005

I was just going to post the Typographica thread along with this comprehensive review.
posted by Utilitaritron at 12:16 PM on December 22, 2005

Triskweline
posted by phrontist at 12:21 PM on December 22, 2005

I am still partial after all these years to Mishawaka, which was the default font for Eudora on the Mac in the 1990s.
posted by werty at 12:23 PM on December 22, 2005

I use Sheldon Narrow. Perfect for coding, imo. It barely inches out Profont for me, and can be found on the same page.
posted by devilsbrigade at 12:41 PM on December 22, 2005

Oh. whatever you do, turn cleartype/aa off for coding. nothing strains my eyes more than looking at smoothed fonts for long periods of time.
posted by devilsbrigade at 12:43 PM on December 22, 2005

Wow Paris Hilton writes code!

I like proggyclean on windows :)
posted by 31d1 at 12:49 PM on December 22, 2005

Ha! Funny that I (i.e., mikel.org) was linked to in this thread.

I can report, however, that I never really had a lot of success with Mishawaka under OS X. Either it wouldn't work at all, or it would only work in some environments (not sure if it's a Cocoa thing or whatever). I would love it if someone would just take the old file, import it into a modern font-making program, and convert it into a file format that would work better!

Now I use Andale Mono, but I'm going to take a look at some of the other ones linked here.
posted by mikel at 12:50 PM on December 22, 2005

Disregard all these heresies, and use the one true font. Since I got my start in programming, it's been my constant and faithful companion.
posted by ny_scotsman at 12:56 PM on December 22, 2005

Bitstream Vera Sans Mono. Every single time. You don't have an email address in your profile...
posted by blag at 1:20 PM on December 22, 2005

nothing beats terminal regular size9, my ultraedit makes everything look like warez
posted by suni at 1:35 PM on December 22, 2005 [1 favorite has favorites]

I second Bitstream Vera Sans Mono. It's very well designed for both print and screen viewing, and works well at any size with modern anti-aliased font rendering. It does a very good job of making similar characters (0/O, 1/l/I) easy to distinguish at a glance, which is great for programming. You can download the Bitstream Vera font family for free.
posted by mbrubeck at 2:45 PM on December 22, 2005

Do a search for GwdTE_437. Its one of the old fonts used by the MIRC program? It think there is an example of it in the thread by Utilitaritron.
posted by tayknight at 3:28 PM on December 22, 2005

I use GwdTE-437. Out of all the fonts in the lowing.org article, it's the one that works the best for me. I'll have to try out some of these others.

Just a quick excerpt from the article:

Good Programming [monospace] Font Criteria
* Crisp clear characters.
* Extended characterset.
* Good use of whitespace.
* 'l', '1' and 'i' are easily distinguished
* '0', 'o' and 'O' are easily distinguished
* forward quotes from back quotes are easily distinguished -prefer mirrored appearance
* Clear punctuation characters, especially braces, parenthesis and brackets
posted by matildaben at 4:02 PM on December 22, 2005

Some of the bitmapped ones are nice, but I'm really looking for vector fonts for a big-ole terminal window.
posted by Paris Hilton at 4:31 PM on December 22, 2005

I haven't used it myself, but if you're talking big & antialiased, you can't get more old-school techy-looking than OCR A.
posted by designbot at 5:39 PM on December 22, 2005

Anonymous is the One True Fixed-Width Font.
posted by majick at 5:45 PM on December 22, 2005

Letter Gothic.
posted by bonaldi at 5:45 PM on December 22, 2005

Bitstream Vera Sans Mono on OS X- the _ character displays blank in Terminal. WTF? Has anyone fixed this?
posted by bobot at 7:38 AM on December 23, 2005

This is a religious issue endlessly debated by geeks, but I use TheSans Mono and have for about ten years.
posted by joeclark at 7:40 AM on December 23, 2005