"Input takes its aesthetic cues from monospaced fonts and pixel fonts designed for consoles and screens, but casts off the technical limitations that constrained them."
With this font Font Bureau has created a complete type system for programming. As demonstrated in the [interactive preview](http://input.fontbureau.com/preview/) it comes with a wide range of styles, sizes, weights and even a whole host of Open Type features. This means you can even choose between a dot or a slash in your zero. If you like you can even opt for proportional instead of monospace.
>"This font was created from the glyphs of the DEC VT320 text terminal, which I used in college, and for which I have retained an unaccountable nostalgia."
[...](http://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/VT323)
VT323 is the recreation of a classic pixel font, converted to outlines. As a result, it doesn't cover that many characters or anything fancy like italic. It may however scratch that itch if you find yourself longing for the days of yonder.
Anonymous Pro is an updated version of this font, also by Mark Simonson. The original has the same character shapes but is more limited in coverage and styles, making the newer Pro version prefable all around.
Not much is known about this seemingly freely available font. It has a slashed zero, but lacks bold and italic. Also, it's character set is very limited and omits things like the euro and copyright signs (although it does include box drawing characters).
> "Gohufont is a monospace bitmap font well suited for programming and terminal use. It is intended to be very legible and offers very discernable glyphs for all characters, including signs and symbols."
With bitmaps for two sizes, normal and bold, this is a very simple and practical font. All character shapes are different, so no confusion between o's and zeros. If you're up for tiny aliased type, you can fit loads of code on a screen with Gohu.
> "As a special feature, Klartext contains a bunch of uncommon glyphs like the German capital sharp S, a nice arrowset and a complete phonetic alphabet."
While only the light version is available freely, this is a very extensive family also including thin, regular, medium, and both (and an italic for all). It's character includes a few uncommon features, in addition to distinct shapes suitable for coding.
No distinct zero, 240 glyphs. A typewriter font does not a programmers font make, but a good typewriter font can be great for reading (and writing that blog in markdown).
Nimbus Mono has been packaged with Ghostscript and many Linux distributions. The Ghostscript fonts were licensed under the LPPL, enabling a number of derivative fonts like TeX Gyre Cursor. Like Courier it lacks a distinct zero, but it does come in bold and italic.
This font, that seems to be available freely, has a name that refers to the IBM Selectric. Like Courier before it, it seems to be derived from that typewriter. It might not be the best choice for coding (no distinct zero), but good typewriter fonts are still great for writing.
> "Terminus Font is a clean, fixed width bitmap font, designed for long (8 and more hours per day) work with computers. Version 4.39 contains 891 characters, covers about 120 language sets and supports ISO8859-1/2/5/7/9/13/15/16, Paratype-PT154/PT254, KOI8-R/U/E/F, Esperanto, many IBM, Windows and Macintosh code pages, as well as the IBM VGA, vt100 and xterm pseudographic characters."
Terminus is a very complete bitmap font, with very clean and clear rendering at a number of sizes. It's coverage is impressive, and even features a bold weight. The zero is slahed to set it apart. Sadly the links on the sourceforge site are broken.
This may be the single best programming font for Windows. It was created specifically for ClearType and is included in Windows Vista and onward. Consolas features true bold and italic, a slashed zero and great coverage (2736 glyphs).
> "Everson Mono is a simple, elegant, monowidth font. I started designing it in 1994 primarily to make glyphs available to support the non-Han characters in Unicode and ISO/IEC 10646, though I hope that users may find it a pleasant alternative to Courier and Monaco for general purposes, e-mail, and so forth. I have found it quite legible at sizes as small as 4 points. It is lighter and a bit looser than Courier."
Michael Everson's project has been running for over 20 years. As a result this is a well rounded font with impressive coverage. In recent years it has been updated with bold and italic versions. The interests of the creator of Everson Mono are reflected in the many languages in Evertype Publishing's portfolio. As a writer's font, it lacks a distinct zero.
> "Designed for IBM between 1956 and 1962 for use on the Selectric typewriter, Letter Gothic is a monospaced, sans serif face."
A classic, designed for typewriter font, that's still great for reading and writing. It's a complete set of regular, bold and oblique, 253 glyphs in each. It doesn't have a distinct zero, but it's a wonderful retro typeface none-the-less.
It has been extended to include mathematical characters for TeX. First created almost 30, Lucida Console has been updated in 2014 to include bold and italic, and it's now the default Notepad font in Windows 8.
Inspired by the IBM Selectric, Nu Sans was designed as a sans alternative to Courier. It features a slahed zero and has in later years been upgraded with bold and italic versions.
An impressive font with over 4500 glyphs covered (2000 in bold and italic), it has been hand hinted and features distinct shapes in all the right places. Notable features also include math and phonetics. It is quite narrow to fit a lot on a screen, but it maintains readability quite well.
> "Anonymous Pro (2009) is a family of four fixed-width fonts designed with coding in mind. Anonymous Pro features an international, Unicode-based character set, with support for most Western and Central European Latin-based languages, plus Greek and Cyrillic."
Designed by [Mark Simonson](http://www.marksimonson.com), Anonymous Pro is an evolution of the original [Anonymous](http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Anonymous), adding lots of character sets and styles. It covers [all the characters (624 glyphs), styles and weights anyone will ever need](http://www.marksimonson.com/assets/content/fonts/AnonymousProSpecimen.pdf), and with all characters easily distinguishable. For fans of having lots of code on screen, it even features bitmap versions for really tiny characters (without anti-aliasing). It's a truly professional option with a splash of character.
> "GNU FreeFont is a free family of scalable outline fonts #suitable for general use on computers and for desktop publishing. It is Unicode-encoded for compatibility with all modern operating systems."
[...](https://www.gnu.org/software/freefont/)
This isn't a designer's font, but an open source community effort to create a single font that has it all. It comes in bold and italic and has the most complete coverage of any font featured on this blog. While an OS will mix and match fonts for missing glyphs FreeFont looks to be a consistent source for anything mankind has ever put into writing. Still, every now and then new releases [improve the offering](https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=freefont). If you need specific scripts or write a lot of math in LateX, this font will not let you down. It would have been better with a more distinct zero though, it lacks a slash or dot to set it apart from the capital o.
>"Fifteen is a faux bitmap font. This font is designed to be used as a monotype font for use in a terminal, or at a larger size, to look like an over scaled bitmap. It is designed for 15 pixel use. It is as narrow as I could make it, and works well in a 132 column terminal window."
[...](http://openfontlibrary.org/en/font/fifteen)
This is not just some programming font. It's designed like a bitmap font, but built as an outline font for maximum compatibility. That does however mean it only looks good at 15 pixels and doesn't have any true bold or italic styles. Indeed, it seems it could not have been made any more narrow: it is supremely efficient at getting lots of code on the screen without sacrificing readability. Fifteen is nearly halve the width of Cousine or Droid Sans, ideal for digging though log files.
> "Cousine was designed by Steve Matteson as an innovative, refreshing sans serif design that is metrically compatible with Courier New™. Cousine offers improved on-screen readability characteristics and the pan-European WGL character set and solves the needs of developers looking for width-compatible fonts to address document portability across platforms."
This font was designed by Steve Matteson, more widely known for his work on the Droid fontfaces you'll find on any Android device. It was created especially for on-screen use, and covers regular, bold and italic in an amazing 2391 Glyphs. Compatibility might be its strongest feat, but it's a serious font for every day use.
> "One particularly surprising aspect of Source Sans’s release was the amount of interest generated by the teaser graphic of the monospaced version. It seemed that this generated about as much buzz as the fonts that we released. Brackets, the open source code editor created by Adobe, has just recently implemented the regular weight of Source Code into their project. Likewise, the font will be integrated into Adobe Edge Code, which was announced this morning at our Create the Web event in San Francisco. The complete family of six weights will also be available as part of our new Adobe Edge Web Fonts service."
Source Sans Pro has been one of the most succesful new, free and designed-for-screen fonts to surface the past few years. Developing an additional monospaced font for code only makes sense. It's modern but still with a notion of playfulness, and special attention has been paid to make every character easily distinguishable. It features an impressive 963 glyphs in seven (yes, 7) weights ranging from ExtraLight to Black. And if all of that is not amazing enough, it has been open sourced on Github and has seen regular updates. An italic version is currently in beta. It's great to see Adobe open sourcing this truly wonderful font.
> "The Oxygen typeface family is created as part of the KDE Project, a libre desktop for the GNU+Linux operating system. The design is optimised for the FreeType font rendering system and works well in all graphical user interfaces, desktops and devices."
Most fonts work fine on a Mac, the best ones add hinting for The Windows ClearType system, but a scarce few pay special attention to the FreeType rendering used in Linux. Oxygen was created to work well in KDE, and this mono variation is a great choice for programmers on Linux. It features a slashed zero and 397 glyphs are enough for pretty much anyone, although purists would prefer true bold and italic.
> "The Ubuntu Font Family are a set of matching new libre/open fonts in development during 2010-2011. The development is being funded by Canonical Ltd on behalf the wider Free Software community and the Ubuntu project. The technical font design work and implementation is being undertaken by Dalton Maag."
Dalton Maag, reknowned for strong typographic identities like Nokia, developed this font to carry the Ubuntu identity throught the Linux distro's user interface. As such it was meant to look great on screen. Matching Ubuntu's mission, the family covers and impressive list of languages and scripts. Its mono variant comes in 1299 glyphs, includes bold and italic, and it features (a dotted zero, distinct ones and i's) make it perfect for programming. It's friendly, modern, and exceptionally readable.
> "Inconsolata is my first serious original font release. It is a monospace font, designed for printed code listings and the like. There are a great many "programmer fonts," designed primarily for use on the screen, but in most cases do not have the attention to detail for high resolution rendering.
Inconsolata draws from many inspirations and sources. I was particularly struck by the beauty of Luc(as) de Groot's Consolas, which is his monospaced design for Microsoft's Vista release. This font, similar to his earlier TheSansMono, demonstrated clearly to me that monospaced fonts do not have to suck."
Inconsolata, inspired (also in name) by Consolas, is very well made and easy on the eyes. Its creator is a [Google Android engineer](http://www.levien.com/), who was also involved with Google Fonts. Although this font doesn't come from a foundry it shows the designer knew what he was doing. If there is a downside it's a lack of coverage (291 glyphs) of certain scripts and true bold and italics.
This font is packaged with OSX, and used to be available in Windows up to ME. It includes true bold and italic, and has a dot inside the zero. Language specific versions (e.g. Cherokee) are available through Monotype and Ascender. Andale Mono used to be part of the "Core fonts for the web" (oh, the old days), which can still be downloaded and used freely from various places on the web (like the [archive](http://web.archive.org/web/20020124085641/http://www.microsoft.com/typography/fontpack/default.htm)).
> "The Latin Modern fonts are derived from the famous Computer Modern fonts designed by Donald E. Knuth and described in Volume E of his Computers & Typesetting series."
This font has been developed by the Polish TeX Users Group (GUST). They paid specific attention to both diacritical and mathematical characters. If you really need extended math support there's even an Latin Modern Math font to help you out. Latin Modern Mono features subtle serifs, great coverage (734 glyphs), and wonderful light and italic styles.
By **Bogusław Jackowski, Janusz M. Nowacki** (2002)
> "The proggy fonts are a set of fixed-width screen fonts that are designed for code listings."
[...](http://www.proggyfonts.net/)
"Probably the most popular programming font", Proggy Clean is the most popular font available from proggyfonts.net. If your editor supports it and you run it at its proper size, this font is incredibly crisp and clear. Of course it lacks true bold and italic, that would only disturb its cleanliness.
> "Luxi is a family of typefaces originally designed for the X Window System by Kris Holmes and Charles Bigelow from Bigelow & Holmes Inc. The Luxi typefaces are similar to Lucida – their previous font design."
[...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxi_fonts)
In many ways similar to Lucida (by the same designers), this font was designed for the X Window System used in many Linux desktops. It features subtle serifs and is great for reading text. It doesn't have a distinct zero however, if you require that. With an adequate 376 glyphs in true bold and italic, you could do worse than go with Luxi for your daily writing.
Developed for the IBM Selectric Composer typewriter, it has for ages been the standard monospaced font. Courier is still packaged with OSX and Windows, along with the much thinner New variation created by Monotype for digital applications (and featured in Windows 3.1). Originally a typewriter font, it doesn't have a distinct zero.
> "At the end of 2011 we released a monospaced font PT Mono™ — the last addition to the pan-Cyrillic font superfamily PT Sans – PT Serif developed for the project “Public Types of Russian Federation”."
[...](http://paratype.com/public/)
The PT family of fonts were created with the aim of fully supporting the Russian language. 811 glyphs in regular and bold includes a slahed zero and it perfect for programming. Even if you're not Russian.
By **Alexandra Korolkova, Isabella Chaeva** (2011)
> "Verily Serif Mono is derived from Bitstream Vera Serif with the same proportions as Bitstream Vera Sans Mono"
[...](http://delubrum.org)
From the same creator as Aurulent Sans Mono comes this Bitstream Vera variation. Basically, it's Bitstream Vera, but with serifs. It covers 240 glyphs, just in regular.
#bistream vera #2006 #serif #stephen g hartke #programming #fonts #typography
<h1>TeX Gyre Cursor</h1>
> "TeX Gyre Cursor is based on the URW Nimbus Mono L kindly released by URW++ Design and Development Inc. under GFL (independently of the GPL release accompanying Ghostscript). The Vietnamese glyphs were added by Han The Thanh.
TeX Gyre Cursor can be used as a replacement for a well-known Courier typeface (designed by Howard G. “Bud” Kettler, 1955, for the IBM corporation)."
This font was created by the same organisation responsible for Latin Moder. The goal was to build a TeX compatible font, based on Nimbus family originally packaged with Ghostscript. Also like Latin Modern, there is a special math font available. The TeX Gyre Cursor was based on URW Nimbus Mono L. It's a light, subtly serifed font. Although a more distinct zero would've been welcome it's superbly readable and comes in 1236 glyphs and true bold and italic.
> "Vera is a group typeface (font) with a liberal license. It was designed by Jim Lyles from Bitstream, and it is closely based on Bitstream Prima, for which Lyles was also responsible. It is a TrueType font with full hinting instructions, which improve its rendering quality on low-resolution devices such as computer monitors."
If to be copied is the sincerest form of flattery, Jim Lyles has much to be proud of: this has to be the [most copied font ever](http://dejavu-fonts.org/wiki/index.php?title=Bitstream_Vera_derivatives). A classic, this font is especially well suited for use on Windows since it's fully hinted. Although Bitstream did a wonderful job, its 300 glyphs can be limiting. Luckily, it has been open sourced, inspiring the [DejaVu Project](http://dejavu-fonts.org/wiki/Main_Page) to expand the coverage of this wonderful typeface.
Not much is known about this font or its creator. Its wide characters pack lots of style, but you could wonder if 208 Glyphs is sufficient. BPmono shines when used large as a display font.
> "M+ M emphasize the balance of natural letterform and high legibility. while M+ MN is aimed at a new distinctive design for a terminal font specialized to programming."
This font was developed by the Japanese M+ Fonts Project, so there are als Japanese script versions available. It covers 1681 glyphs, but lacks a true italic. It's actually quite narrow but quite readable. M+ is also well suited for programming as all similar characters have something to set it apart visually.
By **Coji Morishita** (2003)
*License: custom*
http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/M-1m
http://mplus-fonts.sourceforge.jp
#2003 #sans #free #programming #fonts #typography
<h1>GNU Unifont</h1>
> "This version provides full coverage of the Unicode 7.0 Basic Mulitlingual Plane (BMP). The BMP is the first Unicode "plane" of 65,536 code points, and has character encoding for most of the world's modern scripts.
As of 20 June 2008 (by coincidence the Summer Solstice), GNU Unifont had a glyph for every printable code point in the Unicode BMP."
[...](http://www.unifoundry.com/unifont.html)
Another typical [GNU](https://www.gnu.org) project, it's like a sans version of the GNU Freefont. Not in style but in intent: its coverage is equally amazing and the project is also very active (the most recent update was last October). While the project is somewhat done, they're still pushing for compatibility and development in open tools like Fontforge. If you need your font to be reliable, you can't go wrong with GNU Unifont even though it lacks a distinct zero.
By **Roman Czyborra** (1998)
*License: GNU GPL*
http://www.unifoundry.com/unifont.html
https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/unifont
#sans #open source #active development #1998 #free #programming #fonts #typography
<h1>Fira Mono</h1>
> "Designed to integrate with the character of the FirefoxOS, the Fira typefaces also aim to cover the legibility needs for a large range of handsets varying in screen quality and rendering."
Fira was designed as the default fontface for the Firefox OS. A smartphone OS looking to leverage web technology to a create a more open alternative to iOS and Android. Like the best new fonts it's a fresh design specifically developed for on-screen usage. While a true italic has been ommitted, it does cover over 1100 glyphs and should basically work everywhere. This is no cheap free font but a true professional font by a reknowned designer.
> "In 2009 I wasn’t satisfied with the available text editor fonts and decided to draw my own: Sudo. Over the last years I used it as my main font in the Terminal, as well as my text editor font for coding on Mac and Windows. Whenever something bugged me, I refined the design and could instantly evaluate if a change was an improvement."
[...](http://www.netzallee.de/extra/sudo)
What do you do when you can't find the right font? You create one of course. Of course such a personal project can't match the coverage of more professional efforts, but you have to like the attitude. The files are on github and you can trak Jens's additions and tweaks there.
> "Hermit is a monospace font designed to be clear, pragmatic and very readable. Its creation has been focused on programming. Every glyph was carefully planned and calculated, according to defined principles and rules. For this reason, Hermit is coherent and regular."
[...](https://pcaro.es/p/hermit/)
This font is a clear and modern (futuristic even) sans, created by a programmer to be free for everyone. Its limited coverage won't fill everyones needs, but it is well done and quite popular.
By **Pablo Caro** (2013)
*License: SIL OFL*
https://pcaro.es/p/hermit/
#sans #2013 #free #programming #fonts #typography
<h1>Share Tech Mono</h1>
> "Share Tech Mono is a monospaced sans serif, based on the Share family. There is also Share Tech, a proportionally spaced version."
In 2009 Carrois Type Design developed the extensive Share family of fonts, featuring the Share Tech Mono that's suitable for programming. It has 256 glyphs, only in regular, with a slahed zero and distinct characters.
Like its name implies this font is meant for coding and makes sure all letterforms are easily recognized. It covers 643 glyphs in regular, bold and italic and is freely available from Fontsquirrel.
By **Damien Guard**
http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Envy-Code-R
#free #sans #programming #fonts #typography
<h1>Aurulent Sans Mono</h1>
> "Aurulent Sans is a sans serif font I'm developing for use as the primary interface font on X Windows on GNU/Linux."
[...](http://delubrum.org)
It's a bit limited, 264 Glyphs, and bold and italic need to be synthesized. The creator is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. While Aurulent may [have its flaws](http://typophile.com/node/31970), and doesn't distinguish the 0's and O's, it's a pretty good looking font considering it basically seems to be a hobby project.
#stephen g hartke #sans #2007 #free #programming #fonts #typography
<h1>Droid Sans Mono</h1>
> "The Droid family of fonts was designed by Ascender’s Steve Matteson beginning in the fall of 2006. The goal was to provide optimal quality and reading comfort on a mobile handset. The Droid fonts were optimized for use in application menus, web browsers and for other screen text."
[...](http://www.droidfonts.com)
Designed to carry Google Android's friendly character, Steve Matteson designed this font to be at its best on (small) screens. Sincs its initial relase it has been perfected and expanded, making it a reliable use-anywhere font. At the same time it's fun and ligh-hearted. For some reason it lacks a true italic, and it should better distinguish o's and zeros, but it supports more languages that you can swing a smartphone at.
Hard to say much about a font is so generic and proud of it. It's functional on non-offensive, but it's limited coverage and lack of bold and italics hold it back. It's hard to fault its basic design though, and it's very new, so who knows what the future holds for this font.
By **Luc Devroye** (2014)
*License: SIL OFL*
http://openfontlibrary.org/en/font/generic-mono
#sans #2014 #free #programming #fonts #typography
<h1>Profont</h1>
> "ProFont began life as a better version of Monaco 9 which is especially good for programmers."
Designed during the Eighties specifically for coding, this font has all the important features: readability at small sizes, a slashed zero, disting i's and 1's. The original font had bitmaps for a range of sizes, the more recent (and Mac compatible) versions are outline fonts. Perhaps the bitmaps (turn antialiasing off) are still the best, even though this retro trip isn't for everyone (nor does it work everywhere). You'll also have to do without bold and italic. Get the version for your system from [Tobias Young](http://tobiasjung.name/profont/index.php?fs=12&pf=on).
> "It's my old unfinished font. I made some sketches of several glyphs 5-6 years ago, and I never finished this. Now I made missing glyphs, did changes of some glyphs and turn into monospaced font. The font is updated now (2011.06.17) - I made all glyphs for Latin Extended B, Cyrillic, and Cyrillic Supplement. Added Bold version 2012.11.16 2013.01.27"
This is a beautiful, rounded font with tons of character. While it might not look like the most obvious choice for a programming font it's very well made and its coverage is very good. Consolamono doesn't come with true italics. However, if you're looking for something fun and different, this might just be it.
> "A programming font, designed with functionality in mind, and with some wibbly-wobbly handwriting-like fuzziness that makes it unassumingly cool."
[...](https://github.com/belluzj/fantasque-sans)
Conceived as the "the mutant child of Comic Sans and Helvetica Neue", this is fun as a programming font can get (legally at least). Make no mistakes though, this isn't Comic Sans and Fantasque Sans Mono is very serious. The open source project has seen a great many updates throughout the year. Add a dash of wibbly-wobbly to make a day of debugging a bit less dreary.
> "I use the free Inconsolata font (by Raph Levien) to program and as shell font, and I like it a lot... So I've uses FontForge to modify more his Inconsolata version, to fix some of the things I don't like of Inconsolata."
This variation of Inconsolata, made possible by the OFL license, contains some minor tweaks. Most immediately visible is its increased size. It also uses straight quotes by default. If you agree with Leonardo Maffi that this is an improvement, well there you go.
Originally designed by [a group of students at ISIA Urbino](http://lektongroups.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/luglio-2008.html), this font was inspired by some of the typefaces used on the Olivetti typewriters. It is monospaced because the typewriter fonts were like that too. A programmer may fault it for its lack of a distint zero, but on the upside it features 953 glyphs in regular, bold and italic. Perhaps not surprising considering its origin, Lekton is really a writers typeface.
By **Accademia di Belle Arti di Urbino** (2008)
*License: SIL OFL*
http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/lekton
http://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Lekton
#2008 #writing #sans #free #fonts #typography
<h1>Telegrama</h1>
Telegrama comes in a faux-pixel version (aka "Raw") and a smooth outline version (aka "Render"). It has 227 glyphs, among which a slashed zero.
> "The design of Cutive, and this monospace sister family Cutive Mono, is based on a number of classic typewriter typefaces, in particular the faces of IBM's 'Executive,' and the older 'Smith-Premier.'"
Cutive is a thin and light typewriter font with subtle serifs. A fresh and modern take on the classic style, this wonderful writer's typeface covers the basic western character set. It doesn't have true bold and italic, and zero's and o's aren't very distinct, but that shouldn't hold you back. Get your Hemingway on and blog away with this modern classic.
> "The DejaVu fonts are a font family based on the Vera Fonts. Its purpose is to provide a wider range of characters while maintaining the original look and feel through the process of collaborative development (see authors), under a Free license."
[...](http://dejavu-fonts.org/wiki/Main_Page)
The DejaVu project is open source at its best. Started by expanding the coverage of the Bitstream Vera typeface, it has been in [active development](http://dejavu-fonts.org/wiki/Changelog) for the past ten years. You might not have missed the Turkish Lira sign, but if you did you'll be glad to know it has recently been added. DejaVu has an amazing coverage and has all the styles you'll ever need. It's classic and understated and the goto font for many coders.
By **Deja Vu Project** (2004)
*License: Bitstream Vera License*
http://dejavu-fonts.org/wiki/Main_Page
#2014 #open source #active development #bistream vera #sans #free #programming #fonts #typography
Monotype created a new digital outline Courier by taking the character shapes directly from the Selectric typewriter's [golf ball](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Selectric_typewriter). This resulted in much thinner characters. This font was featuredin Windows 3.1 alongside the original raster Courier. Tweaks have later been made to make the thin font look acceptable in Windows ClearType.
> "Effects Eighty is an homage to the dot-matrix printers of the 1980s. It is a very faithful reproduction of the output of one of that class of printers. The family includes normal, italic, bold, and bold italic versions. It supports the ASCII printable character set. An update with at least some Latin-1 support is planned."
If you're feeling nostalgic for the days of dot-matrix printers (oh the noise they made!) this is your font. Perhaps more whimsycal than than practical, Effects Eighty works as advertised. Excellent retro.
> "I created the NovaCut font about 14-15 years ago for making inscriptions on stone. Initially the font contained only capitals and digits and existed only on paper and stone inscriptions. In 2010 I decided transfer this font to a computer, and made the missing lowercase and some basical signs; it was initially named Gothica."
This is a unique font with lots of character. The rounded flourishes really make it stand out. It does have all the most important features for programming (like a slashed zero), so why not spice up your debugging with Nova.
> "On May 9, 2007, Red Hat announced the public release of these fonts under the trademark LIBERATION at the Red Hat Summit. There are three sets: Sans (a substitute for Arial, Albany, Helvetica, Nimbus Sans L, and Bitstream Vera Sans), Serif (a substitute for Times New Roman, Thorndale, Nimbus Roman, and Bitstream Vera Serif) and Mono (a substitute for Courier New, Cumberland, Courier, Nimbus Mono L, and Bitstream Vera Sans Mono)."
[...](https://fedorahosted.org/liberation-fonts/)
Red Hat sponsored Steve Matteson in 2007 to create a set of fonts it could package with its Linux distribution. The family features metrically compatible replacements for Arial and Times New Roman, as well as a monospaced Courier replacement. While it lacks a distinct zero, this is a solid font with 665 glyphs and true bold and italic.
> "Quinze is a narrow monospaced font, for programming and terminal emulators. It is designed to be narrow, and allow 132 columns to be comfortably fitted on a screen The 1, l and I are clearly distinguished, as are O and 0. The ascii circumflex is presented as an arrow, consistent with its use as exponentiation operator."
[...](http://openfontlibrary.org/en/font/fifteen)
Like Fifteen, Quinze was made to fit lots of code on a line. It's very narrow but still readable. Where Fifteen is a faux bitmap font that only really works at 15 pixels, Quinze is a true outline font. It has all the features required of a programming font, but lacks true bold and italic and its character set is a bit limited. A bit of a specialist font perhaps, but well executed and usefull.
This pixel font (really only works at one size, no antialiasing) is great for tiny text. It's a bit specialized at that, but perfect if it's what you're looking for.
By **Romeo Van Snick**
*License: MIT*
https://github.com/romeovs/creep
#sans #pixel #free #github #active development #programming #fonts #typography
> "The Anka/Coder family is a monospaced, courier-width (60% of height; em size 2048x1229) font that contains characters from 437, 866, 1251, 1252 and some other code pages and can be used for source code, terminal windows etc."
It features true bold an italic variants so this font looks good all the time. Those requiring Greek and other character sets should look elsewhere though, Anka/Coder currently only supports common Latin characters. The open source files are hosted on [code.google.com](https://code.google.com/p/anka-coder-fonts/
). There are narrow and condensed versions for printing lots of code on little space, and it features a slashed zero.
> "Fixedsys is a family of raster monospaced fonts. The name means fixed system, because its glyphs are monospace or fixed-width (although bolded characters are wider than non-bolded, unlike other monospace fonts such as Courier). It is the oldest font in Windows, and was the system font in Windows 1.0 and 2.0, where it was simply named "System". For Windows 3.x, the system font was changed to a proportional sans-serif font named System, but Fixedsys remained the default font in Notepad."
Switch to black on white, turn of anti-aliasing, set it to 10 pixels and imagine yourself back in a time when [Madonna was ground-breaking](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7mxzs649t4) and you could get shoes with lights that would blink as you walked. Awesome? Yes. Would you want to go back? Definitely, but perhaps not indefinitely. Retro has its place though and this might bring you there without giving up modern niceties like good coffee and [phone](http://20thcenturyprops.co.uk/65/Telephones/1980s-retro-Philips-portable-cellular-phone-P405.html) you can [fit in your pocket](http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/1/6880089/this-bent-iphone-6-poster-is-perfect).
Designed, like the Bitstream Vera Mono it was based on, by Jim Lyles, this has been the default programming font for OSX since Snow Leopard. The design seems to have drawn upon the DejaVu project and to be tweaked for rendering on modern OSX systems. Menlo also features a slashed zero (Vera has a dot). It's like the definitive Vera version for OSX, simple and extremely well excecuted.. a good match for a Mac.
By **Jim Lyles**
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menlo_(typeface)
#bitstream vera #commercial #professional #sans #programming #fonts #typography
Not much is known about this font, that is available freely from services like [dafont.com](http://www.dafont.com/monofur.font). It looks great though, has distinct zeros and features a character all its own.
NotCourierSans was created by the [OSP collective](http://osp.kitchen/about) by taking Nimbus Mono and chopping of the serifs. While that doesn't seem like a realy good idea, it has created a quite servicable font. It doesn't feature italics or a distinct zero, but does cover 658 glyphs.
> "Meslo LG is a customized version of Apple’s Menlo-Regular font
(which is a customized Bitstream Vera Sans Mono)."
[...](https://github.com/andreberg/Meslo-Font)
This font was created to tweak the already wonderful Menlo font. Recent updates enhance Windows compatibility with special tweaks to hinting for ClearType.
By **André Berg** (2010)
*License: Apache*
https://github.com/andreberg/Meslo-Font
#bitstream vera #2010 #sans #github #free #programming #fonts #typography
> "AverageMono is an average of thirteen different fonts which are all derivatives of the public domain "Courier" typeface. Or, rather, a subset of the Western Latin characters in it, minus punctuation, are thus. Everything else is imported wholesale from the GNU FreeMono typeface."
The origin story for this font is mind boggling, as is its [coverage of languages](http://openfontlibrary.org/en/font/average-mono) (Urdu or Runic anyone?). Not unlikely one enabled the other. Bold and italic are also in. Basically, it may not have the most character (being Average and all that), but it's hard to find a situation where it won't work.
Not much is known about this font. It features 495 glyphs, only in regular. Also, its zero and capital o are almost equal, as are the one and capital i. So, saxMono might not be an obvious first choice for programming, but it's a well made and modern typeface.
While superseded in 2009's Snow Leopard by Menlo, Monaco has always been present in OSX. While it lacks bold and italic styles, letterforms like i, 1, o and 0 are all distinct.
