Confusing fonts!

[swaldman]

Just a warning to people after my last half hour of "why doesn't this work":

If you use the Microsoft font "Consolas" for your terminals, you may find that the characters "l" and "1" look almost identical.........

I had a look at some of the other monospaced fonts I have on this system. They all fall into either "those characters look the same" or "much less readable". Consolas is a good font, except for that confusion!

So, I post this to,

• Vent my frustration
• Warn others
• Ask if anybody has a favourite terminal font, and what it is?

Sorry if it's too off-topic :-)

Comments

[qem_chibati]

On macs, I usually use the default monaco. On windows, I think I end up using courier usually.

[thorfinn]

The new default as of a couple of years back (Snow Leopard release, I think, maybe earlier) is Andale Mono... I switched to it back then from Monaco, and rather like it.

[denise]

I use Courier New, mostly because I've been using it for years and can tell various easily-confused characters apart by now :)

[stormerider]

Honestly, I stick with Courier New for this kind of reason. It's not the prettiest, but I'll take clarity over pretty.

[swaldman]

I tried Courier New, those characters look even more similar there than they do in Consolas. At least, to my eye when displayed small... ;-)

[stormerider]

I guess I'm used to it because I've been using it for so long. In the lowercase l the lines are all 90 degree angles. In the 1, it's a 45 degree angle at the top.

I think Lucida has a monospaced font, and there are some custom console fonts from programs like TerraTerm and whatnot... vt100 and such.

[dreamatdrew]

I'm using Lucidia Console, and the difference is obvious to me. (The l lacks the horizontal base stroke, the 1 has it.)

[swaldman]

*nod* Lucida Console was one of the altenatives I tried, and indeed I've used it as my main terminal font in the past. I may try it again, but after being used to Consolas it's much less readable.

[denise]

Clearly the solution is for us all to get together and create our own monospaced font.

(I have been avoiding learning font design for about 20 years. I do not have time for font creation geekery.)

[swaldman]

*grin*

[pauamma]

You know you want to! *ducks*

[metawidget]

At work in Windows, I use Lucida Console as well. At home in Mac-land, I use Monaco, as I have for over two decades.

[zvi]

Have you tried ubuntu?

[stormerider]

Interesting, I didn't realize Ubuntu had it's own font set. Trying it now, first impression is that it's very... flowy. I'll have to see if I can acclimate to it or not.

Thanks for the link :)

[zvi]

It's recent, within the last two years. I don't actually use it on my desktop, but I've find them fairly nice for other applications.

[swaldman]

No, I hadn't.
I think I like it.
Thank you!

[zvi]

Welcome.

[pauamma]

İ use the monospace font from that family for all my terminal/shell windows

[exor674]

I use Inconsolata ( http://levien.com/type/myfonts/inconsolata.html )

[kraig]

I've used and liked all of Andale Mono (should be easily available), Anonymous Pro, Proggy, and, briefly, Inconsolata.

None of them suffer from the 0/O 1/l problems.

This page lists these and a few more.

[swaldman]

I like both Inconsolata and (especially) Anonymous Pro. However, they're less condensed than Consolas and Ubuntu Mono. That means that suddenly I can't fit two 80-char windows side-by-side on my screen. Lucida Console has the same problem.

So I'm trying out Ubuntu Mono, which has roughly the same proportions[1] as Consolas but has distinct 1 and l ;-)

[1] I'm sure there must be a typographical term for that...

[kraig]

Yeah, it seems like a silly reason to not like a font, at least it does to me, but at the same time, usability is usability is highly personal. There's a couple fonts I liked but rejected for the same sort of reason. I have widescreen displays everywhere now, so I prefer wide and short to skinny and tall.

[vass]

Sing it! I have been wishing for some time that there was some way to tell 1Password not to generate passwords with 1s or ls or Is or even is.

[alierak]

I use Bitstream Vera Sans Mono (VeraMono.ttf). It has good 0/O and l/1 distinction like the ubuntu fonts, and it comes with X11 on a variety of platforms including the Mac.

[swaldman]

An update for anybody who comes across this in the future:
here's another decent font for these purposes. Although I'm still using Ubuntu Mono as this one is a bit wide for me.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/sourcecodepro.adobe/