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.

[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.

[dreamatdrew]

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

[zvi]

Have you tried ubuntu?

[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.

[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/