Recommended Fonts for Programming? [closed]

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What fonts do you use for programming, and for what language/IDE? I use Consolas for all my Visual Studio work, any other recommendations?

Haunt answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(3)

Most answers to this question are "+1 for Consolas". If you had specified "only one answer per font" in your question, we could have used voting instead, the way the site was supposed to work. Just saying. – Larkins 28/9, 2008 at 14:51

Consolas is awesome. Unless you're connecting via RDP with Windows XP, in which case ClearType does not work so it looks way nasty... – Overact 23/10, 2008 at 6:16

alord1689, good news for you. Install XP SP3, then [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\WinStations] "AllowFontAntiAlias"=dword:00000001 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\WinStations\RDP-Tcp] "AllowFontAntiAlias"=dword:00000001 :) – Ritz 21/11, 2008 at 20:47

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Either Consolas (download) or Andale Mono (download). I mostly use Andale Mono. I wrote an article about programming fonts a long time ago, I think Consolas wasn't even out yet.

http://www.deadprogrammer.com/photos/fonts.gif

I find that typing Illegal1 = O0 is a good test of suitability.

Orji answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(8)

Consolas is great if you're running ClearType on an LCD (though I haven't tried it on a CRT). Consolas is horrible if you don't have ClearType on because it was made with ClearType in mind. – Lustick 23/9, 2008 at 17:8

Is it only me that thinks cleartype makes everything look slight out of focus? (ye sI do have an LCD!) – Alexina 23/9, 2008 at 17:14

Consolas makes me feel sick... proFont and Andale are waaaay batter. – Cymose 15/10, 2008 at 10:18

The Consolas link above only works if you have Visual Studio installed. Otherwise download the Powerpoint 2007 Viewer which contains the font. microsoft.com/downloads/… – Westphalia 26/11, 2008 at 19:13

@mgb: YES! Sometime I activate ClearType to check again, and find everything to be fuzzy. I am probably too old school, but I prefer crisp characters, at least with small sizes. That's why I still prefer Andale Mono (or Bitstream Vera Sans Mono) over Consolas. – Assistant 29/11, 2008 at 9:6

Yeah I don't like ClearType either, but is definitely required for certain fonts, at least at the smaller sizes (8 or 9 pt). – Smashing 13/2, 2009 at 16:33

IMHO, double underscore "__" is good addition to test of suitability – Epileptoid 3/3, 2009 at 11:41

To be fair, everything is horrible without ClearType – Colunga 24/6, 2009 at 23:23

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I've really fallen in love with Droid Sans Mono.

alt text

Homburg answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(4)

I must say this font looks nice, but the O and 0 are too similar for me to adopt this. – Ankylostomiasis 30/9, 2008 at 17:30

Looks very nice but it should be mentioned that it doesn't have bold or italic, which many people like to have for syntax highlighting. – Enyedy 1/6, 2009 at 4:32

I like italics for comments. In XCode you can specify that the comments have their own font and style, though, so not really a problem there. – Sparing 1/6, 2009 at 4:37

I didn't even feel to find better font with "Menlo", however, this is first font made me feel to change my Xcode font setting. – Debbydebee 25/8, 2010 at 9:27

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I really really like DejaVu Sans Mono. It is very clean and easy on the eyes.

enter image description here

Ankylostomiasis answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(3)

I like the DejaVu fonts a lot better than the Consolas; I'm not sure why so many people like Consolas so much, actually. – Janellejanene 25/2, 2010 at 14:27

I also like this one more than Consolas. Additionally, it has a wide range of rarer characters like arrows that are nice when using things like font-lock-symbol-mode for Haskell. Being able to use the same typeface for Cyrillic as well is also really nice. – Hairy 13/7, 2011 at 20:17

Excellent font. Bye, bye Courier New – Adiabatic 2/11, 2011 at 13:54

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+1 for Monaco

alt text http://img.skitch.com/20080908-nmjji28uerreqpprs1h86gxna9.png

Just beautiful and I find I can read it for hours on end.

Rora answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(4)

I heavily concur. I tried Inconsolata and others, but the letters are so squished together that it's hard to read. Shame. – Bootle 22/5, 2009 at 7:23

Monaco looks really sweet on a Mac. I use them at size 13 and it is perfect. – Shelia 26/9, 2009 at 3:56

Monaco was the reason I got a Mac. Simply amazing! – Elberfeld 12/10, 2010 at 10:5

That's the best one on Mac because of its antialiasing adapted to mac screens... Too bad it doesn't exists in italic and bold for Xcode! sticking with consolas because of this. I wished consolas rendering was better. – Gunner 17/5, 2011 at 14:17

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I use Consolas for everything, including Notepad++, SQL Studio, Eclipse, etc. I wish there was a Mac version. Also, if you notice, the text area field on Stack Overflow uses Consolas, so we have some other fans out there as well :p

Branching answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(3)

The same link Jeff provided will download Consolas on OS X, and it works fine for me at home. – Abernathy 8/9, 2008 at 19:26

There's also Inconsolata which is a mac compatible copy. You'll need to google for it as the original creator's site is down, but it's out there! – Frieder 8/10, 2008 at 21:7

I tried Inconsolata on the Mac, but it didn't seem as good to me so I ended up moving Consolas to the Mac. – Sparing 1/6, 2009 at 4:33

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I like Envy Code R.

alt text

Legendary answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(6)

I especially like the italics! – Tachistoscope 6/10, 2008 at 22:53

It is also very readable on a dark background (even at 13pt) like Tomas Restrepo's DesertNights Visual Studio theme at winterdom.com/weblog/CategoryView,category,VSColorScheme.aspx – Heyerdahl 5/11, 2008 at 2:0

For me, the font is too high - not necessarily the height of the characters, but the space between the lines. (I want more lines of code on the screen!) – Budwig 30/12, 2008 at 11:37

Great font. I use this on any non-ClearType machine. – Digression 17/4, 2009 at 6:48

thanks for the tip. this font is very good for coding, even more with GDI++ – Clout 10/8, 2009 at 23:29

Experiment with the font size. It seems to make a bigger difference to how it renders than with most fonts. Try 1 bigger or smaller. – Heyerdahl 6/9, 2010 at 6:29

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I use Bitstream Vera Sans Mono, but you need to activate ClearType to get it readable .

I like the 'Illegal1 = O0' readablility test, mentioned earlier in this thread, thanks for that.

Ainsley answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(3)

Long time BVSM user as well. Wow, good to get that off my chest! – Neary 9/3, 2009 at 18:30

I have just changed from being a loyal fan of this one as it doesn't contain macrons - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macron . I now use Consolas. – Maquette 25/4, 2009 at 0:43

Apparently, DejaVu is an updated version of Bitstream Vera, with lots of characters that Bitstream Vera is missing. Perhaps you should look at DejaVu Sans Mono? – Ailurophobe 20/8, 2009 at 10:23

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+1 for Monaco, although this blog post is making me think about switching to Inconsolata.

I'm curious as to what point size y'all use, I use the TextMate default size of 12pt.

Purlieu answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(3)

Monaco 9pt has been my default since starting with BEEdit on OS9 (or 8?) – Logos 3/11, 2008 at 9:51

I'm getting older and screen resolutions are getting higher -- 9 pt is getting smaller and smaller. I've had to bump up to 10 pt or higher. – Incumbency 3/11, 2008 at 18:18

I can't stand fonts that put a serif to the left of the bottom of the lowercase 'l'. such as inconsolata In what universe does an 'l' have that? It isn't similar to handwriting, printer's fonts, or a proportional font. It is too simliar to a '1'. At least Consolas and Monaco get it right. – Hurff 2/12, 2008 at 3:23

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Anarch, 32 points, ofcourse. Code with style!

anarch http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/1584/ss42po1.jpg

Gaffney answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(6)

this has got to be a joke – Wendel 29/1, 2009 at 19:59

hasen, haven't read Tamil before have ya? :-D – Digression 17/4, 2009 at 6:49

I prefer this: home.student.uu.se/j/jowi4905/fonts/annatar.html (the italic version) – Isabea 4/12, 2009 at 8:12

I guess this is how a designer thinks programmers should work... – Meistersinger 16/3, 2010 at 17:6

It seemed Arabic, to me. – Skysail 16/8, 2010 at 22:57

Where’d I put my Braille font…? – Whenas 3/3, 2012 at 2:11

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For UltraEdit and anything for that matter, I use the good old Courier New.

alt text http://www.identifont.com/samples/microsoft/CourierNew.gif

I've found Consolas to difficult to read with it's over anti-aliasing.

Syndesis answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(3)

Yeah, Courier New is great! ... for mixing up 1l, 0O and such... ;-) I don't Consolas either, but I definitively adopted Andale Mono since Microsoft started to distribute it on their Web site... – Assistant 29/11, 2008 at 9:11

Makes sense to use a font like courier New that is specifically designed for easy readability – Confutation 12/8, 2009 at 22:31

I like Courier New because it's easy to read, has italic and bold and is monospaced. – Rob 5/8, 2011 at 13:7

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I use Lucida Console for years and never find anything better.

However I tried a few times Consolas fonts and simply -- I prefer Lucida Console.

Rochkind answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(1)

The problem with Lucida Console is that bold is wider than normal. I like to use bold in my syntax highlighting, but not if it makes my line grow and shrink as I use it! – Hurff 2/12, 2008 at 3:17

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I like Terminus for some command line stuff, at least scrolling log files and irssi/irc (TTF versions available). Screenshot of the terminus.ttf in action below (PuTTY on Windows XP with ClearType enabled).

Screenshot of the terminus.ttf in action below (PuTTY on Windows XP with ClearType enabled). http://misc.nybergh.net/pub/fonts/terminus/2008-09-08_terminus_ttf_in_gnu_nano_putty_windows_xp_cleartype_screenshot.png

Duren answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(3)

I use it in my text editors in Linux as well as the console. – Trimurti 30/9, 2008 at 17:34

+1, also my favourite :) – Compo 26/12, 2010 at 17:48

I also really like Nano! – Preestablish 13/6, 2011 at 0:54

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I use Consolas on my mac, BTW; here's a link to download the consolas TTF files if you want to install this (Mac/Win/Linux).

/mp

Goofball answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(1)

The link appears to be broken. – Dermoid 29/5, 2009 at 16:40

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I have been using the Dina - http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Jibz/Dina/index.html - font for awhile now for text editing and it seems to be doing the job nicely.

Sheathing answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(4)

I tried alot of programmer fonts before settling on this one too. If you are a cross platform developer, you can find a Linux (X Windows) version of the font in the forum on that page. donationcoder.com/Forums/bb/index.php?topic=7857.0 – Austerlitz 3/4, 2009 at 19:11

One more thing, take your favorite programming font and check the alignment on two lines with the same text but different sections in bold and italic. Alot of fonts don't get this right. – Austerlitz 3/4, 2009 at 19:13

I like Dina as well, although there are others I don't mind. I'm not as picky as some of the other posters. – Roundlet 20/6, 2009 at 23:59

I use this font extensively in my editors, and even my command window and putty sessions. I find it the most comfortable font for coding. – Micco 24/11, 2010 at 17:3

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I don't use Consolas, though it does look good on LCD, but sometimes I'm not on LCD, like when I'm giving presentations and then it looks crap.

My current font of choice for programming is the Liberation Mono font.

Oh man, just discovered why the text on Stack Overflow looks like crap, it forces Consolas which is a cleartype font, and on my current setup which didn't have cleartype enabled, it looks very bad.

Going to make a bugreport on uservoice.

Bluey answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(3)

I never noticed... because I just haven't Consolas on this computer... :-) – Assistant 29/11, 2008 at 9:10

I use Liberation Mono in both Vim and Visual Studio. – Glauconite 7/7, 2009 at 19:50

I use the Liberation fonts for most of my screen and print output. Also removes any problem with font licensing between machines. – Clari 23/7, 2009 at 13:21

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ProFont. Am I the only one still using it?

Cuomo answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(4)

I use it for pretty much everything that a monospace font is useful for - I love it! – Purlieu 14/10, 2008 at 19:43

ProFont is the best out there. Consolas is soooo overrated. – Cymose 15/10, 2008 at 10:9

I use it and love it... Profont is usually one of the first things I install on my dev machines. – Easel 29/1, 2009 at 4:39

I love ProFont as well. Got VS and Notepad++ using it. I usually grab it on the second day of using a new box when I start to get annoyed with Consolas. – Gunstock 28/4, 2009 at 23:54

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A excellent CodeProject article that list 33 fonts for programming (With examples of each)

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/work/FontSurvey.aspx

Superload answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(0)

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I'm amazed nobody has mentioned Pragmata. It's the BMW of programming fonts. Condensed, readable, and the pinnacle of simple elegance.

alt text http://www.fsd.it/fonts/imm/pr_abc.gif

There is now a fundraising project going on for PragmataPro (which covers a larger portion of Unicode than Pragmata) to make it available for free under a Creative Commons license!

Marshland answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(6)

It's a pretty hard sell for someone to spend ~ $125-150 on a programming font. – Spectroscopy 20/10, 2008 at 7:35

That's a good point. It's definitely a luxury. The author gave me a discount though (upon request) and I'm sure he would do the same for any bulk purchases. – Marshland 20/10, 2008 at 18:17

I use it, too ;) But the 0 and the O are too similar I think. And the I and the l. Therefore I sometimes switch back to Courier. Mentioning price: how long do you watch this font? – Ewen 3/2, 2009 at 12:58

Bulk purchases? Like buying all the characters at once? – Sparing 1/6, 2009 at 4:34

Important to note that that €90 price is for up to "5 computers of one company" - this is quite standard for font licencing. – Decemvirate 8/3, 2010 at 13:6

There is now a fundraising project going on for PragmataPro (which covers a larger portion of Unicode than Pragmata) to make it available for free under a Creative Commons license: indiegogo.com/… . – Megganmeggi 3/11, 2011 at 7:10

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I like Fixedsys in Visual Studio. It's a classic. No anti-aliasing blur.

Fixedsys Typeface

Hemihydrate answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(2)

well, it is for Win, but what about linux? – Nairn 27/10, 2008 at 8:6

I ported FixedSys to a TTF, and others continued my work fixedsys.moviecorner.de/?p=download&l=1 – Westphalia 26/11, 2008 at 19:16

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I use Inconsolata with UltraEdit on Windows. With TextMate (on the Mac) I prefer Monaco (it's the default font).

Amundson answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(0)

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I like Profont, I first came across it when Jeff blogged about programming fonts

Recital answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(0)

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Inconsolata 14pt in TextMate

Meretricious answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(1)

That's what I use, and it looks great (although it seems to look much better on dark backgrounds, rather than light ones). – Infidel 22/10, 2008 at 15:36

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I like Consolas too, but I also like Anonymous: http://www.ms-studio.com/FontSales/anonymous.html

Scalp answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(2)

Anonymous is great... I always keep coming back to it. Especially good for machines without ClearType. – Saki 20/10, 2008 at 18:23

There's a new and improved version, Anonymous Pro, with bold, italic and international Unicode characters: ms-studio.com/FontSales/anonymouspro.html. Open licence. – Decemvirate 26/10, 2009 at 17:54

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I use a proportional font too. They seem good for the same reasons they work in books and magazines: the more variation between characters, the easier it is for the brain to distinguish them; and you can fit more on the screen. Indentation still works fine: 6 leading spaces is still twice as wide as 3 leading spaces.

I use a version of Georgia that I hacked to make the lower case "l" look less like the digit "1", and put a slash through the zero.

Popularly answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(0)

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I never found a reason to stray from Courier New. I don't think I'd have a problem with any font so long as it's sans-serif. Mono-spaced fonts are nice for coding, too.

Radical answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(4)

Courier New is a serif font... – Quarrelsome 28/11, 2008 at 14:57

True, but when I say sans-serif, I mean something that's NOT like Times New Roman (with its annoyingly curvy serifs). – Radical 11/12, 2008 at 15:13

I think that mono-spaced is a requirement for coding. – Boff 29/1, 2009 at 6:50

I once switched over my editor to a serif font, thinking "Hey, this is what I use in everything else, so...". Yeah, that got annoying pretty quickly, especially if you look at code that's supposed to be aligned and it isn't... – Goodlooking 25/8, 2009 at 22:26

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Adding a vote for Consolas. It feels very easy on my eyes.

Mucro answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(0)

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Instead of just chiming in with another vote for a particular font, I'd recommend reading these comparisons of programming fonts where you can learn a little more:

Jeff Atwood's excellent "round-up":
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000157.html

Another review of 5 fonts with nice screenshots:
http://blog.hamstu.com/2008/02/03/the-typography-of-code/

Millard answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(0)

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Two pages where there's a long list of programming fonts are these pages on keithdevens.com and lowing.org (dead link, but it's in the internet archive)

Some other discussions of programming fonts that may have more suggestions are the comments to this blog post on typographica and this topic on a text editor's forum.

Personally I like Triskweline:

alt text http://www.netalive.org/tinkering/triskweline/shot.gif

Betulaceous answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(1)

The lowing.org link doesn't work for me - actually found it in 2 different places this morning, neither of which worked. – Roundel 19/10, 2009 at 13:35

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I think the anti-aliasing blur on Consolas is caused by monitors which do not have ClearType enabled. Consolas was designed for ClearType.

[Jeff A: indeed, you can see screenshots of this in a post I wrote on this topic.]

Additament answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(1)

if (consolas with cleartype on == GREAT) { echo 'GREAT'; } >>> GREAT – Actinomycosis 10/12, 2008 at 13:3

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DejaVu Sans Mono (sometimes known as Panic Sans), size 11, anti-alised. Previously I only used fonts that weren't anti-aliased, but it just seems to work for this font.

Screenshot of Panic Sans in Sublime Text

Combatant answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(0)

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Back in my Mac LC days I swore by Monaco 9pt, mostly for it's slashed 0. I never quite got used to the default line-height though.

monaco sample http://www.k8zt.com/ham_fonts/monaco.jpg

It's a little hard to track down in the original non-OS-X version.

Scientist answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(2)

It's installed as a default font on OS X Leopard (10.5). Or is this a different font? – Mil 10/10, 2008 at 9:35

ProFont was derived from Monaco 9pt and is practically the same. – Mckeever 9/5, 2009 at 23:0

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Verdana - Variable width and easy to read on screen at small sizes.

Labrecque answered 7/8, 2008 at 13:8 Comment(1)

i like that you're ok with variable width too :) – Brunhilde 26/9, 2009 at 4:14

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Consolas. Italic for comments. Only way. Nahh just kidding, the best programming font is this! Here's your first C program:

The image link must not be working, tell me in a comment http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/8008/picture1iqv.png

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