I decided to revisit my choice of programming fonts recently, mostly inspired by this article.
After trying the various fonts in this article, I narrowed down my choices to Consolas and Inconsolata. Here is what they look like:
| Consolas 12 | Inconsolata 12 |
|---|---|
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| Inconsolata 13 |
|---|
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They all look great in Eclipse. The Inconsolata font is freely available but Consolas is a bit more tricky to obtain on Mac since it’s a font created by Microsoft and usually shipped with Microsoft products. Here are instructions how to install it on your Mac.
Any other suggestions for good programming fonts?
#1 by Thomas on January 19, 2010 - 2:14 pm
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I like to use DejaVu Sans Mono. Looks great imho. terminus is also very good, but it’s not good for very small font sizes (<12).
Cheers
Thomas
#2 by BoD on January 19, 2010 - 5:21 pm
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I used “Andale Mono” (available from Microsoft’s ‘Core fonts for the Web’ package) for a long time, but currently I’m back to “Lucida Console”.
I really really wish fractional point font size existed: to me 7 is too small but 8 is too big…
I tried “Comic” once for the fun of it… Didn’t last long
#3 by Rusty Wright on January 19, 2010 - 10:27 pm
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Just a note about a peculiarity with font sizes; a font’s size, in points, is only meaningful with that font (or font family). For example, you can’t say anything meaningful about 10 point Times Roman and 12 point Lucida; the 12 point Lucida might be bigger, or it might even be smaller.
#4 by kebernet on January 19, 2010 - 10:45 pm
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Droid Sans Mono is a great coding font.
#5 by Guillaume Laforge on January 20, 2010 - 3:44 am
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I like Vera Sans Mono — and that’s the one I’ve been using for years. Someone mentioned DejaVu which is pretty similar I believe. In your samples in your post, you should be showing the letters which are usually problematic: 1, l, I, i, as well as 0 and 0. If you can distinguish them easily, then that’s a good programming font
#6 by DGentry on January 20, 2010 - 7:52 am
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I’m fond of Anonymous Pro 2009:
http://www.ms-studio.com/FontSales/anonymouspro.html
I’ve also used Inconsolata, and been pleased with it.
#7 by Jesse Kuhnert on January 20, 2010 - 12:25 pm
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Just switched fonts as well based on the same article – to consolas.
12pt though? Seemed way too small after first trying 14pt. Not as large as I’ve traditionally had them set but so far liking it a lot – looks extremely crisp. You must have at least 10 yrs on me, don’t know how you look at 12pt unless you’re secretly pimping glasses / contacts er something.
#8 by Weeble on January 20, 2010 - 5:29 pm
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I used to use Consolas at work on Windows, and I did like it. At home on Ubuntu Linux I used Inconsolata, but I found I wasn’t satisfied with the anti-aliasing at small sizes. In your Inconsolata screenshots you can see the upper and lower bars on the equals signs look different: the upper bar is all blurry. That kind of thing really annoys me, and I find it gets really bad at small sizes. So I gave up on outline fonts for programming and switched to a bitmap font called Monte Carlo. I really enjoy being able to fit more code on the screen. In fact, I like it so much that I now use it on Windows too.
I’d still like to find a monospaced font that still looks clear and sharp with sub-pixel anti-aliasing at small sizes, but I think this requires extremely good hinting and I haven’t seen anything I’m satisfied with yet.
#9 by Jack on January 20, 2010 - 7:57 pm
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Droid Sans Mono 10
#10 by Daniel Stutzbach on January 22, 2010 - 11:17 pm
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I know this may sound like blasphemy, but have you considered variable-width fonts? I’ve been using Corbel happily for many months now.
#11 by Laurent on January 27, 2010 - 2:16 pm
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Misc fixed 10. Works very well in emacs.
#12 by bart on January 28, 2010 - 4:05 am
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I’m also
#13 by bart on January 28, 2010 - 4:07 am
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I’m also a long time lover of Dina, which got mentioned in the comments of the article a few times.
#14 by Faruk Akgul on February 25, 2010 - 6:19 pm
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I used to use Consolas but I’ve been using Monaco for the last ~1.5 years. Monaco 11 for Eclipse, and Monaco 12 for Terminal and TextMate.
#15 by Climie Anne Voight on March 16, 2010 - 9:31 am
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I am currently using ProggyTT.
http://www.proggyfonts.com
Only one size, but this is very well done!
Crisp and exactly the frills I want.
#16 by Dave on June 5, 2011 - 6:57 am
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Nice fonts right there. Thanks for the link! I have been a faithful user of Droid Sans Mono, and I guess, it’s time for change! Thus, let it begin! =)
#17 by Theo@http://www.walkfitreview.com/ on June 15, 2011 - 6:22 am
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Arial is often overlooked, but it is a clear and readable typeface. Bitstream Vera is a free font developed for the GNOME project but is available on other platforms.