Monospace/Fixed Width Programmer's Fonts

Monospace/Fixed Width Programmer's Fonts

About This Page
Becoming frustrated with source code not aligning in my favorite source editor I decided to hunt for the best font. In particular, I began to hunt down the available fixed-width or monospaced fonts. What are monospaced fonts you ask? From Xerox: Monospace fonts (Such as Courier or LetterGothic), or "fixed pitch" fonts, contain characters that all have the same character width, producing text that can be used to create forms, tabular material or documents that require exact text line lengths. An example of a fixed pitch font is Courier 12 pitch, which is a 10 point font that will print at exactly 12 characters per inch. Why use monospaced fonts? Primarily because the text will align more readily. Especially is areas like the comment block header. Updated versions of this document will be located at
Good Programming Font Criteria
Crisp clear characters. Extended characterset. Good use of whitespace. 'l', '1' and 'i' are easily distinguished '0', 'o' and 'O' are easily distinguished forward quotes from back quotes are easily distinguished -prefer mirrored appearance Clear punctuation characters, especially braces, parenthesis and brackets
Fonts Reviewed (Best Listed First) (View All) (Name, Sizes -Fontinfo, Type, Description, Download Info)
Bitstream Vera Sans Mono (View Sample) 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 36, 48, 72 TrueType Plenty of space between lines, dotted zeros, clean. http://www.gnome.org/fonts/ ti92pluspc (View Sample) TrueType Clear, Dark, slashed zeros. http://www.tamuk.edu/math/scott/stars/tutorial.htm Crystal (View Sample) TrueType Clear, Dark, slashed zeros. Availiable with free Povray software. http://www.povray.org/povlegal.html Monaco (View Sample) 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 36, 48, 72 TrueType Plenty of whitespace, slashed zeros, serifed i's. From Apple. http://www.gringod.com/wp-upload/MONACO.TTF or http://hellocity.net/~iolo/files/fonts/ Anonymous (View Sample) 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 36, 48, 72 TrueType Less whitespace, slashed zeros, very clear. http://www.ms-studio.com/FontSales/anonymous.html Andale Mono (View Sample) 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 36, 48, 72 TrueType Tons of space between lines, dotted zeros. http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/ Raize (View Sample) 10, 12, 14 Bitmap Sharp, Legible, slashed zeros. http://www.raize.com/DevTools/Tools/RzFont.zip ProFontWindows (View Sample) 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 36, 48, 72 TrueType or Bitmap Clean, slashed zeros, really wide. http://66.167.72.10/ProFontWindows.zip Sheldon (View Sample) 9 Bitmap Plenty of whitespace, real clear, slashed zeros. http://www.tobias-jung.de/seekingprofont/ BSU Kermit (View Sample) 9 Bitmap Zeros Slashed, thin, spread out http://home.datacomm.ch/privmsg/havoc/mircscript.htm Lucida Sans Typewriter Regular (View Sample) 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 36, 48, 72 TrueType Zeros Not Slashed Available with free Java 2 SDK. http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/download.html Courier New (View Sample) 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 36, 48, 72 TrueType Lots whitespace between lines, no zero treatment. http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/ Courier (View Sample) 10, 12, 15 TrueType Clean but spread out, no zero treatment. Installed with Windows Lucida Console (View Sample) 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 36, 48, 72 TrueType Letters bunched, no zero treatment, clean text. http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/ ProggyTiny (View Sample) 8 Bitmap Really tiny, dotted zeros http://www.tactile3d.com/tristan/ ProggyClean (View Sample) 8 Bitmap Typeriter appearance, dotted zeros http://www.tactile3d.com/tristan/ Fixedsys (View Sample) 9 TrueType Really Dark, slashed zeros http://fixedsys.moviecorner.de Topaz-8 (View Sample) 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 36, 48, 72 TrueType Amiga Topaz-8. Little space between lines, slashed zeros, fat/squat text Amiga_Topaz-8.zip Free Monospaced (View Sample) 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 36, 48, 72 TrueType Unreadable crap. http://ftp.gnu.org/savannah/files/freefont/ MS Mincho (View Sample) 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 36, 48, 72 TrueType No Zero treatment, clear text Installed with Windows or Office. Try Google. Hyperfont (View Sample) 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 36, 48, 72 TrueType Thin, spread out, slashed zeros ftp://ftp.hilgraeve.com/pub/vendor/hilgraeve/hyprfont.zip Squareshooter Mono (View Sample) 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 36, 48, 72 TrueType Tons of room between lines, spread out,squarish, slashed zeros http://freefonts.fateback.com/hypotypo/

Not Yet Reviewed

• Terminus   (Windows Download)
• • terminus-medium-r-normal--12-120-72-72-c-60-iso8859-1 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--14-140-72-72-c-80-iso8859-1 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--16-160-72-72-c-80-iso8859-1 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--20-200-72-72-c-100-iso8859-1 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--12-120-72-72-c-60-iso8859-2 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--14-140-72-72-c-80-iso8859-2 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--16-160-72-72-c-80-iso8859-2 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--20-200-72-72-c-100-iso8859-2 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--12-120-72-72-c-60-iso8859-5 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--14-140-72-72-c-80-iso8859-5 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--16-160-72-72-c-80-iso8859-5 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--20-200-72-72-c-100-iso8859-5 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--12-120-72-72-c-60-iso8859-9 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--14-140-72-72-c-80-iso8859-9 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--16-160-72-72-c-80-iso8859-9 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--20-200-72-72-c-100-iso8859-9 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--12-120-72-72-c-60-microsoft-cp1251 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--14-140-72-72-c-80-microsoft-cp1251 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--16-160-72-72-c-80-microsoft-cp1251 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--20-200-72-72-c-100-microsoft-cp1251 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--14-140-72-72-c-80-iso8859-13 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--16-160-72-72-c-80-iso8859-13 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--20-200-72-72-c-100-iso8859-13 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--12-120-72-72-c-60-iso8859-15 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--14-140-72-72-c-80-iso8859-15 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--16-160-72-72-c-80-iso8859-15 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--20-200-72-72-c-100-iso8859-15 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--12-120-72-72-c-60-iso8859-16 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--14-140-72-72-c-80-iso8859-16 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--16-160-72-72-c-80-iso8859-16 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--20-200-72-72-c-100-iso8859-16 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--12-120-72-72-c-60-koi8-r (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--14-140-72-72-c-80-koi8-r (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--16-160-72-72-c-80-koi8-r (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--20-200-72-72-c-100-koi8-r (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--12-120-72-72-c-60-paratype-pt154 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--14-140-72-72-c-80-paratype-pt154 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--16-160-72-72-c-80-paratype-pt154 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--20-200-72-72-c-100-paratype-pt154 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--12-120-72-72-c-60-koi8-u (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--14-140-72-72-c-80-koi8-u (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--16-160-72-72-c-80-koi8-u (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--20-200-72-72-c-100-koi8-u (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--12-120-72-72-c-60-iso10646-1 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--14-140-72-72-c-80-iso10646-1 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--16-160-72-72-c-80-iso10646-1 (View Sample)
  • terminus-medium-r-normal--20-200-72-72-c-100-iso10646-1 (View Sample)
• CP1250 Terminal Fonts
• Terminal/VGA Font (View Sample)
• Century Schoolbook Monospace BT (View Sample)
• Fixedsys Excelsior
• GwdTE_437 (View Sample)
• DPCustomMono2 (View Sample)   (Download here)
• eFont

Tools

• Font properties extension for Windows
• Enumerate all Fixed-Width fonts installed in Windows  Download binary
• TrueType Viewer Tool