Have you tried Triskweline, it's a nice clean looking font and is a lot easier on the eyes than Courier.

<a href="http://www.netalive.org/tinkering/triskweline/">http://www.netalive.org/tinkering/triskweline/</a>;

I'm currently using ClearType on my 24" widescreen Dell at work.
I've been using it for the last few months and have gotten pretty used to it. But it still seems to make text look kinda blurry if I stop and stare.

On going evaluation...

I always run at 1920x1200 w/ cleartype on, which is perhaps why I like Consolas. Are you still using Courier? I was on Lucida Console for years, but have seen some rendering issues with the latest VS.

Like you, I'm always on the lookout for something better when it comes to my programming font.

Sorry I caused a stream of blood to come from your eyes :)

Call me old-fashioned but I'm still hooked on Courier New, 8pt, ClearType. Nothing beats it - looks just like an old typewriter. Maybe I like it because my first experiences with programming was actually typing out FORTRAN programs on my Dad's typewriter. :)

Consolas? Naah.

Have you tried ProFont? it's excellent.

http://www.tobias-jung.de/seekingprofont/

I have tried ProFont. I'm a Proggy man, personally.

On high-DPI displays, however, I can't use bitmap fonts like Proggy and ProFont -- they're too small. In these cases I usually go with Andale Mono. I would consider Consolas if I had ClearType enabled.

Call me a rebel, but I actually prefer a proportional font, even when I'm programming. I don't find there's any reason to have a fixed width font as I don't try to line text up with other lines.

I'm currently using Verdana 8pt font on 1600x1200 display and it looks great. I can see a lot of code at once.

I've also configured Visual Studio to display strings in a different color (Maroon) and that helps reviewing code as well.

Kiliman

Call me crazy but lately I've been using Terminal, 6 point on Visual Studio. It takes a day to get used to, but the benefits are you can fit three times the amount of legible code onscreen. I like Courier New too, but 6 point Courier is not readable.

Personal recommendations for VS: "OCR A Extended" (comes with office or IE I believe), "OCRB" (comes with MS Works, I think), "Lucida Console" (with Windows XP, I guess).

I was disappointed with Consolas as well, but for different reasons. I currently use Monaco for every fixed-width font that I can replace with it. I compared it with Consolas using my standard ambiguous character test:
|!1lIi
0Oo
,.;:_-=+`'"
<>(){}[]

Consolas looks better than Monaco, it's more compact, has better letter spacing, but its 'l' (lowercase 'L') looks too much like a '1' (number one). I've tried tested every fixed-width font I've come across, and none can beat Monaco.

This article was a great help for me when looking for fonts: <a href="http://www.lowing.org/fonts/">http://www.lowing.org/fonts/</a>; I had been using ProFont before Monaco. If Consolas would just ditch that damn lower-left-serif in the 'l' I'd switch in a second. Everything else about it was perfect for me.

I was disappointed with Consolas as well, but for different reasons. I currently use Monaco for every fixed-width font that I can replace with it. I compared it with Consolas using my standard ambiguous character test:
|!1lIi
0Oo
,.;:_-=+`'"
<>(){}[]

Consolas looks better than Monaco, it's more compact, has better letter spacing, but its 'l' (lowercase 'L') looks too much like a '1' (number one). I've tried tested every fixed-width font I've come across, and none can beat Monaco.

This article was a great help for me when looking for fonts: http://www.lowing.org/fonts/ I had been using ProFont before Monaco. If Consolas would just ditch that damn lower-left-serif in the 'l' I'd switch in a second. Everything else about it was perfect.

Hi Jeff,

Disappointed by Consolas' crap look without aliasing too...

So I've stuck with Pragmata TT.

Examples: http://blog.xeraph.org/coding/2005/08/07/programming-fonts
http://fsd.it/fonts/pragmata.pdf

Though, if you're looking for free, I guess you'll have to stick with the limited options there are..

It is indeed quite nice, but 90 euros? I just tried "convert 90 euros to dollars" in google and got:

90 Euros = 110.05200 U.S. dollars

Ouch. For ONE font?

Best mono programmers fonts I have seen are available from <a href="http://www.procon.com.au/Fonts.htm.">http://www.procon.com.au/Fonts.htm.</a>;
I use their raster font (HVRaster) but they also have a TTF version of the font (HVEdit). The fonts have clear distinctions between all characters and make optimal use of screen width and depth to squeeze more columns and lines on the screen. Work well in Visual Studio.

Well, the Consolas font looks reasonably ok, but I really would like if the Lucida Console 10pt to look like Lucida Console 14pt - IMHO *the* best font ever (there's a notably difference occurring between 13pt/14pt).

--larsw

try bold italic. Very nice.

My favorite programming font, the one I find myself always going back to, is Bitstream Vera Sans Mono.

You can find more at http://www.gnome.org/fonts/

my vote for Bitstream Vera too. Because it is usable with anti aliasing. Monaco is nice, but italic text gets wider and it is not available in small characters on pc.

I like Consolas, although I recently found out that it demands some edition of VS installed to allow installation. Bummer!
The Bitstream Vera family is another personal favorite. For work purposes I use DejaVu Sans, an open source font family based on the Bitstream fonts but extending it by adding Unicode fonts. It's Unicode coverage is impressive and keeps on growing. Check it out at http://dejavu.sf.net.

Why not go use Dejavu Sans Mono?

and to ck: Dejavu sans is based on Bitstream vera.

Perfectly solved my problem by setting ClearType
Thanks.

I use Linux a lot at work. I can assure you, there's no better font than Terminus. It was specifically designed for long work with the console. Unfortunately, it comes in linux bitmap variant only. There's been an effort to make a TTF variant, but you should judge for yourself is it worth. You can find the windows ttf here http://fractal.csie.org/~eric/wiki/Terminus_font

For windows I use consolas with cleartype turned on. But I don't usually code in windows :-)

Have you tried the NSimSun font? It's the fixed width Chinese font that appears when you install the extra fonts for East Asian languages on XP, but it's really nice for programming. At least, it's nice on my 1024x768 display with cleartype switched off.

Im trying to find this font:
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1204/993473102_73b1aa5bd1.jpg?v=0
Any idea?

>> Im trying to find this font:
<a href="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1204/993473102_73b1aa5bd1.jpg?v=0">http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1204/993473102_73b1aa5bd1.jpg?v=0</a>;
Any idea?

That's a sweet font. When you find can you please post it up? :)

I only had a quick glance, but the curly braces makes me think it's Speedy:
http://www.proggyfonts.com/index.php?menu=download

Im using Tahoma 8pt proportional (non-fixed width) font with ClearType for coding on Windows and can say that i will never return to fixed width font.

Proggy fonts are too bogus. Try out Dina. set the font size to 9. Make identifiers orange, overall background black with 40 green, blue and red. Change identifiers to grey. Make your comments green, with line numbers lime. Change operators to navy blue.

I hate to be a Simpsons pedant, but this is the second time you've linked to that quote, and yet misquoted it. The line is: "My eyes...the goggles do nothing!"

I use Lucida Console, size 7 (1280x1024). Believe me, I try almost every editor for Windows, none of them display it correctly, except my beloved Delphi Editor. I recently have tried Verdana (size 7), characters look great, but I would like to see a MONOSPACED (TTF) version... Any (good) designer can take the challenge?

Good Programming Font Criteria:
(found at: http://www.lowing.org/fonts/)

-Crisp clear characters.
-Extended characterset.
-Good use of whitespace.
-'l', '1' and 'i' are easily distinguished
-'0', 'o' and 'O' are easily distinguished (slashed zero)
-forward quotes from back quotes are easily distinguished -prefer mirrored appearance
-Clear punctuation characters, especially braces, parenthesis and brackets

Plus my personal criteria: (font designers forget them)

-Character must be based on Verdana, size 7.
-Symbol characters must be centered horizontally and vertically (all axis aligned)
-Must have Normal, Italic, Bold styles with SAME WIDTH for all of them!!!
-Must support size 7!!!
-ClearType support

Some pictures:

Lucida Console (Size 7)
http://img529.imageshack.us/my.php?image=lucidaconsole7sizeql6.png

Verdana (Size 7)
http://img413.imageshack.us/my.php?image=verdana7sizedf5.png

RenanUJ
sisex_ at hotmail dot com
sisex_@hotmail.com

Some pictures:

Lucida Console (Size 7)
http://img57.imageshack.us/my.php?image=lucidaconsole7sizeig1.png
http://img48.imageshack.us/my.php?image=lucidaconsole7sizebay3.png

Verdana (Size 7)
http://img413.imageshack.us/my.php?image=verdana7sizedf5.png
http://img57.imageshack.us/my.php?image=verdana7sizehighlightedax9.png

RenanUJ

Consolas, and run the ClearType Tuner and set the rendering to strongest, and it will be nice, dark, sharp and extremely legible at 8pt, although some might still prefer it at a larger size. 9pt and 10pt are nice too.

See this: http://codeblog.palos.ro/2008/02/08/smoothansi-font-best-for-programming/

@Valeriu Palos
Seems like an incredibly crappy font in all areas. What are you thinking ?

I can't believe you're saying that! I'm not sure what you saw but I find this font far better than the rest! I put a screen-shot for'ya:
http://codeblog.palos.ro/2008/02/08/smoothansi-font-best-for-programming/

Like many others, I like Monaco as my best favorite. My second best favorite is Inconsolata. It's nice both in a terminal (on the mac at least) and in print.

http://www.levien.com/type/myfonts/inconsolata.html