6 ms·

Top Programming Fonts

60 points by voxcogitatio 17y ago

ehsanul 17y ago
I didn't even notice my terminal font until it being pointed out. So am I the only one perfectly happy with just Monospace?
- there 17y ago
  i still use the default xterm "fixed" font.
- graywh 17y ago
  Ubuntu? In that case, "Monospace" isn't really a font, but Bitstream Vera Sans Mono or DejaVu Sans Mono.
  - ehsanul 17y ago
    Ahh, thanks for pointing that out. I am indeed on Ubuntu. And I'm obviously entirely clueless about fonts; ignorance is bliss. :)
telemachos 17y ago
If you love Incolsolata, but hate the curl of the quotes (single and double), see here: http://nodnod.net/2009/feb/12/adding-straight-single-and-double-quotes-inconsola/ http://nodnod.net/2009/feb/12/adding-straight-single-and-dou... (It's posted in the comments to that article, but it may not jump out at people.)
ComputerGuru 17y ago
Consolas has pretty much overtaken all the rest in most of the reviews these days. It's a great font (esp. on OS X)!
b3b0p 17y ago
I love DejaVu Sans Mono: http://dejavu-fonts.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page http://dejavu-fonts.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page Which is a variant of Bitstream Vera Sans Mono: http://www.gnome.org/fonts/ http://www.gnome.org/fonts/ However, right now, my new favorite font is Menlo that came with Snow Leopard. It's another variant of Bitstream Vera and it seems to work much better at smaller font sizes. Which is great for limited screen sizes (such as 1280x800 on a smaller laptop).
- rbanffy 17y ago
  Menlo looks nice. There is a comparison between both at http://8.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kozenpQvKP1qzus90o1_500.png http://8.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kozenpQvKP1qzus90o1_500.png
- dazmax 17y ago
  Wow, I hadn't noticed Menlo, thanks. I've been using Bitstream Vera Sans Mono for a while but I don't like how faint the hyphen is with anti-aliasing when I'm coding in haml – a problem that Menlo fixes.
rbanffy 17y ago
I have been using Envy Code R. From time to time, I change my font. I guess I need some variety. I have a pet project of reproducing the IBM 3270 terminal font. I love those 6's and 9's.
- psadauskas 17y ago
  I used to switch fonts between different ones all the time. About a year ago, I found Envy Code R. I haven't switched since. Easy to read, easy to tell the difference between zero and O, paren and curly brace, etc... http://damieng.com/blog/2008/05/26/envy-code-r-preview-7-coding-font-released http://damieng.com/blog/2008/05/26/envy-code-r-preview-7-cod...
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - warfangle 17y ago
    Thanks for this. I really like Inconsolata, but this is absolutely great. Best monospaced font I've seen.
merraksh 17y ago
I have used Schumacher Clean for ages, and find it awesome. Not sure it's available on Mac/Win, but it's very readable and clean (...). I mostly write LaTeX and C/C++ in Emacs on dark grey background.
- chronomex 17y ago
  I love that font and don't ever see it in any of these font reviews. My emacs is a very dark brown background and a light grey base face.
- andrewcooke 17y ago
  i agree, but did you notice that monaco 9 point without anti-aliasing in this article looks very similar? which seems like good news to me, because if schumacher disappears then there's something to fall back to...
  - merraksh 17y ago
    True, monaco9 looks a lot like clean12. However, I use a 13point version for coding. It's a little taller and for that reason, in my opinion, clearer. If schumacher disappears, I should look for monaco 10pts, as I can't find it on my linux box...
yurifury 17y ago
I am a fan of Terminus. Very readable, crisp and works on both Linux and Win32 machines. http://www.is-vn.bg/hamster/ http://www.is-vn.bg/hamster/
mechanical_fish 17y ago
I finally got around to spending a couple of hours configuring emacs 23 for the Mac. If I had fully realized that it supported native fonts now, and that Inconsolata would make me this happy, I'd have upgraded months ago.
davepeck 17y ago
I tend to prefer Consolas to Inconsolata. Consolas' glyphs feel like they have more uniform thickness throughout.
cdplayer 17y ago
Anonymous Pro... http://hivelogic.com/articles/anonymous-pro-programming-monospace-font/ http://hivelogic.com/articles/anonymous-pro-programming-mono... it's the best overall.
- vito 17y ago
  Agreed. All of the characters are perfectly balanced and fine-tuned. For example, #, /, and <> all look wonderful in code. Monaco messes that up, especially with /. Takes a little bit to get used to using a serif monospace font though.
TrevorBurnham 17y ago
The article says of Consolas: "Too bad it’s not free … if it was, it would be #1 on this list." Consolas actually can be downloaded for free, legally. If you're on Windows, you can download an installer for the font directly from Microsoft at: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=22e69ae4-7e40-4807-8a86-b3d36fab68d3&displaylang=en http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=22e... If you're on a Mac, slightly more effort is required. Instructions can be found at: http://www.wezm.net/2009/03/install-consolas-mac-osx/ http://www.wezm.net/2009/03/install-consolas-mac-osx/ Though, actually, you don't have to use the Terminal. You can just right-click the XML File Format Converter installer, "Show Package Contents," and navigate to the font installer package.
- sp332 17y ago
  This isn't true. You can download the file, but the copyright license only extends to licensed users of specific versions of Visual Studio.
  - TrevorBurnham 17y ago
    Fair enough. You can, alternatively, download and install the trial version of Microsoft Office 2007. http://us20.trymicrosoftoffice.com/default.aspx http://us20.trymicrosoftoffice.com/default.aspx
jballanc 17y ago
For me, requirements for a good programming font are: - Easy to distinguish 1, l, and | - Zero with a slash - Lowercase g open on bottom (two circles is too cluttered) Surprisingly, with those simple rules the only font on the list that gets all 3 is Monaco. (My personal choice, Menlo, also gets all 3.)
- huhtenberg 17y ago
  > - Zero with a slash Debatable. Zero is typically narrower than uppercase O, so it is trivial to distinguish them even without the slash that merely adds to the visual noise.
  - jballanc 17y ago
    Sure, but that assumes that you have a 0 and an O sitting right next to each other to compare. That said, the reason I don't like dotted-0 is because I feel it's too noisy. I think a slash is the right balance...but that's me ;-)
z8000 17y ago
Pragmata is very nice, but I tend to stick with 6x13.
dmarble 17y ago
I have to add my love for Liberation Mono. https://fedorahosted.org/liberation-fonts/ https://fedorahosted.org/liberation-fonts/ Releases: https://fedorahosted.org/releases/l/i/liberation-fonts/ https://fedorahosted.org/releases/l/i/liberation-fonts/ I recently had one of those "time to tweak my environment" days where I spent the entire day trying out monospaced fonts (DejaVu Sans Mono, Bitstream Vera Sans Mono, Envy, Terminus... everything I could find) in various color schemes in multiple editors (Win). I've now pretty much set any program where I need a monospace font to Liberation Mono 10pt. However, I think Consolas looks better if I'm trying to fit more onto the screen. It looks better at smaller sizes than Liberation. So I've settled on using 2 editors most the time with pretty similar features (Notepad++ & Programmer's Notepad), one loaded with Liberation Mono, the other with Consolas for files where I'd like to squeeze more lines in and keep decent readability. Maybe there's a better way of doing things, but I like having two sorta different workspaces that I can quickly open.
huhtenberg 17y ago
Oh my... 22 comments and no mention of Dina. What is happening to HN lately ? :-) http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Jibz/Dina http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Jibz/Dina
- jrockway 17y ago
  Maybe people are tired about arguing over which font is best every other day?
mtarnovan 17y ago
This is also a good font: http://damieng.com/blog/2008/05/26/envy-code-r-preview-7-coding-font-released http://damieng.com/blog/2008/05/26/envy-code-r-preview-7-cod...
zargon 17y ago
I like MonteCarlo: http://bok.net/MonteCarlo/ http://bok.net/MonteCarlo/
gnosis 17y ago
Another programming font comparison: http://code.frostglow.com/fonts/programming-font-comparison.html http://code.frostglow.com/fonts/programming-font-comparison....
teeja 17y ago
I like Lucida Grande for code with lotsa text. I didn't know about Consolas, which looks great for code.

60 points by voxcogitatio 17y ago

I didn't even notice my terminal font until it being pointed out. So am I the only one perfectly happy with just Monospace?

there 17y ago
i still use the default xterm "fixed" font.
graywh 17y ago
Ubuntu? In that case, "Monospace" isn't really a font, but Bitstream Vera Sans Mono or DejaVu Sans Mono.
- ehsanul 17y ago
  Ahh, thanks for pointing that out. I am indeed on Ubuntu. And I'm obviously entirely clueless about fonts; ignorance is bliss. :)

telemachos 17y ago

If you love Incolsolata, but hate the curl of the quotes (single and double), see here: http://nodnod.net/2009/feb/12/adding-straight-single-and-double-quotes-inconsola/ http://nodnod.net/2009/feb/12/adding-straight-single-and-dou... (It's posted in the comments to that article, but it may not jump out at people.)

ComputerGuru 17y ago

Consolas has pretty much overtaken all the rest in most of the reviews these days. It's a great font (esp. on OS X)!

b3b0p 17y ago

I love DejaVu Sans Mono: http://dejavu-fonts.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page http://dejavu-fonts.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page Which is a variant of Bitstream Vera Sans Mono: http://www.gnome.org/fonts/ http://www.gnome.org/fonts/ However, right now, my new favorite font is Menlo that came with Snow Leopard. It's another variant of Bitstream Vera and it seems to work much better at smaller font sizes. Which is great for limited screen sizes (such as 1280x800 on a smaller laptop).

rbanffy 17y ago
Menlo looks nice. There is a comparison between both at http://8.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kozenpQvKP1qzus90o1_500.png http://8.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kozenpQvKP1qzus90o1_500.png
dazmax 17y ago
Wow, I hadn't noticed Menlo, thanks. I've been using Bitstream Vera Sans Mono for a while but I don't like how faint the hyphen is with anti-aliasing when I'm coding in haml – a problem that Menlo fixes.

rbanffy 17y ago

I have been using Envy Code R. From time to time, I change my font. I guess I need some variety. I have a pet project of reproducing the IBM 3270 terminal font. I love those 6's and 9's.

psadauskas 17y ago
I used to switch fonts between different ones all the time. About a year ago, I found Envy Code R. I haven't switched since. Easy to read, easy to tell the difference between zero and O, paren and curly brace, etc... http://damieng.com/blog/2008/05/26/envy-code-r-preview-7-coding-font-released http://damieng.com/blog/2008/05/26/envy-code-r-preview-7-cod...
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- warfangle 17y ago
  Thanks for this. I really like Inconsolata, but this is absolutely great. Best monospaced font I've seen.

merraksh 17y ago

I have used Schumacher Clean for ages, and find it awesome. Not sure it's available on Mac/Win, but it's very readable and clean (...). I mostly write LaTeX and C/C++ in Emacs on dark grey background.

chronomex 17y ago
I love that font and don't ever see it in any of these font reviews. My emacs is a very dark brown background and a light grey base face.
andrewcooke 17y ago
i agree, but did you notice that monaco 9 point without anti-aliasing in this article looks very similar? which seems like good news to me, because if schumacher disappears then there's something to fall back to...
- merraksh 17y ago
  True, monaco9 looks a lot like clean12. However, I use a 13point version for coding. It's a little taller and for that reason, in my opinion, clearer. If schumacher disappears, I should look for monaco 10pts, as I can't find it on my linux box...

yurifury 17y ago

I am a fan of Terminus. Very readable, crisp and works on both Linux and Win32 machines. http://www.is-vn.bg/hamster/ http://www.is-vn.bg/hamster/

mechanical_fish 17y ago

I finally got around to spending a couple of hours configuring emacs 23 for the Mac. If I had fully realized that it supported native fonts now, and that Inconsolata would make me this happy, I'd have upgraded months ago.

davepeck 17y ago

I tend to prefer Consolas to Inconsolata. Consolas' glyphs feel like they have more uniform thickness throughout.

cdplayer 17y ago

Anonymous Pro... http://hivelogic.com/articles/anonymous-pro-programming-monospace-font/ http://hivelogic.com/articles/anonymous-pro-programming-mono... it's the best overall.

vito 17y ago
Agreed. All of the characters are perfectly balanced and fine-tuned. For example, #, /, and <> all look wonderful in code. Monaco messes that up, especially with /. Takes a little bit to get used to using a serif monospace font though.

TrevorBurnham 17y ago

The article says of Consolas: "Too bad it’s not free … if it was, it would be #1 on this list." Consolas actually can be downloaded for free, legally. If you're on Windows, you can download an installer for the font directly from Microsoft at: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=22e69ae4-7e40-4807-8a86-b3d36fab68d3&displaylang=en http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=22e... If you're on a Mac, slightly more effort is required. Instructions can be found at: http://www.wezm.net/2009/03/install-consolas-mac-osx/ http://www.wezm.net/2009/03/install-consolas-mac-osx/ Though, actually, you don't have to use the Terminal. You can just right-click the XML File Format Converter installer, "Show Package Contents," and navigate to the font installer package.

sp332 17y ago
This isn't true. You can download the file, but the copyright license only extends to licensed users of specific versions of Visual Studio.
- TrevorBurnham 17y ago
  Fair enough. You can, alternatively, download and install the trial version of Microsoft Office 2007. http://us20.trymicrosoftoffice.com/default.aspx http://us20.trymicrosoftoffice.com/default.aspx

jballanc 17y ago

For me, requirements for a good programming font are: - Easy to distinguish 1, l, and | - Zero with a slash - Lowercase g open on bottom (two circles is too cluttered) Surprisingly, with those simple rules the only font on the list that gets all 3 is Monaco. (My personal choice, Menlo, also gets all 3.)

huhtenberg 17y ago
> - Zero with a slash Debatable. Zero is typically narrower than uppercase O, so it is trivial to distinguish them even without the slash that merely adds to the visual noise.
- jballanc 17y ago
  Sure, but that assumes that you have a 0 and an O sitting right next to each other to compare. That said, the reason I don't like dotted-0 is because I feel it's too noisy. I think a slash is the right balance...but that's me ;-)

z8000 17y ago

Pragmata is very nice, but I tend to stick with 6x13.

dmarble 17y ago

I have to add my love for Liberation Mono. https://fedorahosted.org/liberation-fonts/ https://fedorahosted.org/liberation-fonts/ Releases: https://fedorahosted.org/releases/l/i/liberation-fonts/ https://fedorahosted.org/releases/l/i/liberation-fonts/ I recently had one of those "time to tweak my environment" days where I spent the entire day trying out monospaced fonts (DejaVu Sans Mono, Bitstream Vera Sans Mono, Envy, Terminus... everything I could find) in various color schemes in multiple editors (Win). I've now pretty much set any program where I need a monospace font to Liberation Mono 10pt. However, I think Consolas looks better if I'm trying to fit more onto the screen. It looks better at smaller sizes than Liberation. So I've settled on using 2 editors most the time with pretty similar features (Notepad++ & Programmer's Notepad), one loaded with Liberation Mono, the other with Consolas for files where I'd like to squeeze more lines in and keep decent readability. Maybe there's a better way of doing things, but I like having two sorta different workspaces that I can quickly open.

huhtenberg 17y ago

Oh my... 22 comments and no mention of Dina. What is happening to HN lately ? :-) http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Jibz/Dina http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Jibz/Dina

jrockway 17y ago
Maybe people are tired about arguing over which font is best every other day?

mtarnovan 17y ago

This is also a good font: http://damieng.com/blog/2008/05/26/envy-code-r-preview-7-coding-font-released http://damieng.com/blog/2008/05/26/envy-code-r-preview-7-cod...

zargon 17y ago

I like MonteCarlo: http://bok.net/MonteCarlo/ http://bok.net/MonteCarlo/

gnosis 17y ago

Another programming font comparison: http://code.frostglow.com/fonts/programming-font-comparison.html http://code.frostglow.com/fonts/programming-font-comparison....

teeja 17y ago

I like Lucida Grande for code with lotsa text. I didn't know about Consolas, which looks great for code.