
Top Programming Fonts - voxcogitatio
http://hivelogic.com/articles/top-10-programming-fonts
======
b3b0p
I love DejaVu Sans Mono:

<http://dejavu-fonts.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page>

Which is a variant of Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:

<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
Menlo looks nice. There is a comparison between both at
<http://8.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kozenpQvKP1qzus90o1_500.png>

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telemachos
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-
dou...](http://nodnod.net/2009/feb/12/adding-straight-single-and-double-
quotes-inconsola/)

(It's posted in the comments to that article, but it may not jump out at
people.)

------
yurifury
I am a fan of Terminus. Very readable, crisp and works on both Linux and Win32
machines.

<http://www.is-vn.bg/hamster/>

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dmarble
I have to add my love for Liberation Mono.
<https://fedorahosted.org/liberation-fonts/> Releases:
<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.

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TrevorBurnham
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=22e...](http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=22e69ae4-7e40-4807-8a86-b3d36fab68d3&displaylang=en)

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/>

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
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
Fair enough. You can, alternatively, download and install the trial version of
Microsoft Office 2007.

<http://us20.trymicrosoftoffice.com/default.aspx>

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

~~~
graywh
Ubuntu? In that case, "Monospace" isn't really a font, but Bitstream Vera Sans
Mono or DejaVu Sans Mono.

~~~
ehsanul
Ahh, thanks for pointing that out. I am indeed on Ubuntu. And I'm obviously
entirely clueless about fonts; ignorance is bliss. :)

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

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

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jballanc
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
> \- 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
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 ;-)

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

~~~
vito
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.

------
huhtenberg
Oh my... 22 comments and no mention of Dina. What is happening to HN lately ?
:-)

<http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Jibz/Dina>

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

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mtarnovan
This is also a good font:

[http://damieng.com/blog/2008/05/26/envy-code-r-
preview-7-cod...](http://damieng.com/blog/2008/05/26/envy-code-r-
preview-7-coding-font-released)

------
rbanffy
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
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-cod...](http://damieng.com/blog/2008/05/26/envy-code-r-
preview-7-coding-font-released)

~~~
warfangle
Thanks for this. I really like Inconsolata, but this is absolutely great. Best
monospaced font I've seen.

------
zargon
I like MonteCarlo: <http://bok.net/MonteCarlo/>

------
mechanical_fish
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.

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merraksh
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.

~~~
andrewcooke
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
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...

------
gnosis
Another programming font comparison:

[http://code.frostglow.com/fonts/programming-font-
comparison....](http://code.frostglow.com/fonts/programming-font-
comparison.html)

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

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z8000
Pragmata is very nice, but I tend to stick with 6x13.

