www.nico.schottelius.org/docs/xorg-terminal-emulator-fonts.mdwn

[[!meta title="Xorg terminal emulator font list"]]

## Introduction

This page describes fonts I tested for usability in
a terminal emulator. The ratings may be highly subjective
and describe my way to find good fonts.
This site is inspired by the
[Nice fonts for X terminals](http://adamspiers.org/computing/zsh/files/prompts/X_fonts.README)
site. It does not try to make things better, just again
to find my personal preferences.

## How I tested

I'm using a small script named **urxvt-font-change**,
which is part of the nsbin git repository. This script
allows me to dynamically change the font in the running
terminal. Besides searching around the net for font names,
I've used two local sources:

 * xlsfonts (core X font subsystem)
 * fc-list (xft)

So I load a new font, issue an **ls** in my home directory
(which is pretty much mixed up) and decide whether I can
read the content easily or not and whether it made
some kind of special impression.

Reloading or adding core fonts can be via

    xset fp+ /usr/share/fonts/local/
    xset fp rehash


## Objectives

There are a lot of different objectives for choosing
a font that suits you. For me, the following objectives
are interesting: Is the font usable for ...

 * small screens
 * presentations
 * my eyes

The last point is probably mostly subjective, a font
must "look good" to me.


## Font list

And here's the actual font table:


[[!table  data="""
Font name | Size | Recommended | Remarks
5x7 | tiny | no | Unreadable
nexus | tiny | no | Digiclock style font, but hard to read
shine | tiny | no | Similar to nexus, bit better
outcast | tiny | no | Similar to shine, bit better
edges | tiny | no | Similar to nexus, more edges
suxus | tiny | no | Unreadable
tixus | tiny | yes | Very well readable for such a small font
smallcaps | small | no | filenames as caps on unix?
smooth | small | undecided | Good overall, but "M" looks weired and font feels stretched
artsie | small | yes | Well readable
fixed | small | yes | Well readable
-*-terminus-*-*-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-* | tiny-small | yes | Well readable
smoothansi | small | undecided | Good overall, but "M" looks weired and font feels stretched
xft:DejaVu Sans Mono:pixelsize=10 | small | yes | Well readable
kates | small-medium | no | Very fancy (impressive?), but partly hard to read
bigcaps | small-medium | no | Hurts my eyes
xft:Liberation Mono:style=Regular | small-medium | yes | Well readable
xft:Source Code Pro| small-medium | yes | Well readable, i,l,1 well distinguishable
a14 | medium | yes | Well readable
xft:Inconsolata:style=Medium | medium | yes | Well readable
-*-terminus-*-*-*-*-14-*-*-*-*-*-*-* | medium | yes | Well readable
lucidasans-10 | medium | no | Way too much whitespace
xft:Droid Sans:style=Regular | medium | no | Too much whitespace, not instantly good readable
MonteCarlo:style=Sans Bold | medium | no | Not Bold, nor incredible easy to read
lucidasanstypewriter-10 | medium | yes | Very well readable
10x20 | medium | no | Mostly good readable, looks a bit disarranged
xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:style=Bold | medium | yes | Very well readable
xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:style=Roman | medium | yes | Very well readable
variable | medium-large | no | Unreadable
12x24 | large | undecided | Well readable, strange style, good size
xft:Bitstream Vera Serif:style=Roman | large | | Too much whitespace
xft:DejaVu Sans,DejaVu Sans Condensed:style=Condensed Bold,Bold| large | | Too much whitespace
-*-terminus-*-*-*-*-32-*-*-*-*-*-*-* | large | yes |
lucidasanstypewriter-24 | extra large | yes | Even blind can read it
"""]]

## See also

 * [Optimal Use of Fonts on Linux](http://avi.alkalay.net/linux/docs/font-howto/Font.html)
 * [Nice fonts for X terminals](http://adamspiers.org/computing/zsh/files/prompts/X_fonts.README)
 * [Terminus font](http://fractal.csie.org/~eric/wiki/Terminus_font)
 * [Vico's little Linux site/fonts](http://vico.kleinplanet.de/fonts.html)
 * [suxus font](http://oldhome.schmorp.de/marc/suxus.html)
 * [Archlinux Terminal Emulator font discussion](https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=283004)
 * [MonteCarlo](http://www.bok.net/MonteCarlo/)

[[!tag unix]]