TOP 10 PROGRAMMING FONTS

TOP 10 PROGRAMMING FONTS

SUNDAY, 17 MAY 2009 • PERMALINK

Update: This postwas written back in 2009, and much has changed since then. I’ve also written afew subsequent posts about alternative programming fonts, like this one about Anonymous Pro.

I’m a typefacegeek, and when it comes to selecting a font I’ll stare at all day, I tend to bepretty picky. Recently, when I discovered that a friend was using a sub partypeface (too horrible to name here) for his Terminal and coding windows, myjaw dropped, my heart sank a little, and I knew it was due time for me tocompose this article.

What follows isa round-up of the top 10 readily-available monospace fonts. Many of these fontsare bundled along with modern operating systems, but most are free for downloadon the web. A few, notably Consolas, are part of commercial software.

A NOTE ABOUT ANTI-ALIASING

In the past,we’ve had to decide between tiny monospace fonts or jagged edges. But today,modern operating systems do a great job of anti-aliasing, making monospacefonts look great at any size. It’s not 1990 anymore. Give your tired eyes abreak and bump up that font size.

If you have anydoubt that anti-aliased fonts are apropos for code, note that even thevenerable BBEdit — which for years has shipped with un-aliased Monaco 9 set asthe default — has made the jump. The app now ships with a specially licensedversion of the Consolas font from Ascender, bumped up in size, and withanti-aliasing on by default. Panicincludes a special anti-aliased font(Panic Sans, which is actually just a version of Deja Vu Sans Mono) with itspopular Coda application.

Unless otherwisenoted, I’ve used a larger size font, 15-point in fact, for the examples here toillustrate their legibility at larger sizes and with anti-aliasing turned on.

10. COURIER

All systems shipwith a version of Courier (sometimes Courier New), and unfortunately, many haveit set as the default font for terminal and editor windows. It does the job,but it’s a bit dull and boring, lacking style and class. I don’t recommend thisfont if you have any other choice — and fortunately, you do. If you use thisfont, please bump the size and turn on anti-aliasing.

Figure 1 Courier New

9. ANDALE MONO

A bit betterthan the Courier family, Andale Mono is still relegated to the “default font”category as it ships with some systems, and you wouldn’t want to download oruse it if it wasn’t already there. The character-spacing is a bit too clumsyand the letters are a bit too wide for my tastes.

Figure 2 Andale Mono

8. MONACO

Monaco is thedefault monospace font on the Mac and has been since its inclusion in System6. It’s a solid, workhorse font that really shines at smaller fontsizes with anti-aliasing turned off. I loved this typeface backwhen my eyes could tolerate staring at a 9-point font for hours, but those daysare behind me. This font looks great at 9 or 10-points (Figure 4), and doesn’tlook too shabby anti-aliased at higher sizes (Figure 3).

As far as Iknow, you can only get Monaco as a part of Mac OS, but there are alternatives,so keep reading.

Figure 3 Monaco

Figure 4 Monaco 9-point, without anti-aliasing

7. PROFONT

Profont isa Monaco-like bitmap font available for Mac, Windows, and Linux (there’s also a modifiedversion for Mac OS X called ProFontX by a different author).They’re best at smaller sizes, and make a great alternative to Monaco if you’reon a non-Mac platform and want really tiny fonts and the eyestrain that goesalong with them.

Profont (andProFontX) is intended for use at 9-points with anti-aliasing turned off.

Figure 5 Profont 9-point, without anti-aliasing

6. MONOFUR

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Monofur isa unique monospace font that looks great anti-aliased at all sizes. It’s a funfont with a distinct look that is vaguely reminiscent of Sun’s OPEN LOOK windowmanager, which ran Solaris (aka SunOS) systems back in the late 80’s. If you’relooking for something a bit different, try this font, but make sure you haveanti-aliasing turned on, even at small sizes.

Figure 6 Monofur

5. PROGGY

Proggy is a clean monospace font thatseems to be favored by Windows users, although it works fine on a Mac. It’s aclean font intended to be used only at smaller points, and withoutanti-aliasing.

Figure 7 Proggy Clean at 15-point (yes, 15-point), without anti-aliasing

4. DROID SANS MONO

The Droidfont family (available for download here) is a nice font family designed for useon the small screens of mobile handsets, like Android,and licensed under the Apache license.

Droid Sans Monomakes for a great programming font. It’s got a bit of flair, and stands outamong the other monospace fonts I’ve listed, and its only real flaw is the lackof a slashed zero.

Figure 8 Droid Sans Mono

3. DEJA VU SANS MONO

The Deja Vu family of fonts are one of myfavorite free font families, based on the excellent Vera Font family.The Deja Vu fonts have been updated with a wider range of characters whilemaintaining a similar look and feel to that of Vera.

This was mygo-to font family for many years. It looks great at any size with anti-aliasingturned on.

Panic shipsa font with it’s Coda application called “Panic Sans” which is based on thisfont. Gruber saysvia email that when he compared Panic Sans against Vera, he noted that “Panichad noticeably crisper punctuation chars” and that it seemed like they hadimproved the hinting on some characters as well.

Figure 9 Deja Vu Sans Mono

2. CONSOLAS

Consolas suddenly appeared on my Macafter I installed Microsoft Office, along with a handful of other new fontsfrom Microsoft.

This font wasdesigned by Luc(as) de Groot for Microsoft’sClearType font family (there’s a nice write-up with samples of each of the newMicrosoft fonts here). Consolas is a commercial font, but isbundled with many Microsoft products, so there’s a good chance you mightalready have it on your system.

You’ll absolutelywant to have anti-aliasing turned on if you’re using Consolas, because it’lllook terrible without it.

Too bad it’s notfree … if it was, it would be #1 on this list.

Figure 10 Consolas

1. INCONSOLATA

Inconsolata is my favorite monospacedfont, and it’s free. Shortly after discovering it, it quickly supplanted DejaVu Sans Mono as my go-to programming font. I use it everywhere, from Terminalwindows to code editors. It has a certain sublime style that’s unique withoutbeing over the top, and it looks fantastic at both large and small sizes. I usethis font when I show code samples in a presentation, and it’s the font we usein Terminal and TextMate windows when filming PeepCode screencasts.

Inconsolata isdesigned to be used with anti-aliasing enabled, but it’s surprisingly legibleeven at very small sizes. A big thanks to Raph Levienfor creating this font, and formaking it free.