I keep looking for good, clear programmer fonts to make my screen "bigger" on my laptop. Recently took an on-site contract where the monitors are 1280x1024 (iirc, and [sic] while we're at it). That stinks. I'm bringing in an old CRT for now, as apparently items not bolted down sometimes walk over the weekend, but I again wanted a tiny font.

I usually use ProFontWindows or, about as good and even smaller, Proggy Tiny, but these are still at least 7px wide. You'd think 180 chars would be enough, but with VS' solution explorer taking up so more, etc etc...

So are there any good 5 and 6 pixel wide monospace programming fonts? Not really. There's really only one source, and that's here (EDIT: Looks like that's gone; URL now to archive.org version). From the site...

These are fixed-width fonts converted to TTF and FON format from the original X11 sources. You will recognize them as the default xterm fonts; they are widely used. They are especially useful for console apps. We programmers can't live without them!


I've tried them out. The 5px wide version is tough on the eyes. I could feel the strain. The 6px is almost good enough, but eventually I went back to Proggy. Not sure if I could stand to keep using 6px wide or not. There are a number of heights to choose from.

But do check out the "g" on 5x7, just for kicks. Poor little tail. I'm not sure there's another, better way to make it work, though.

5x7

I mean, it's legible, but I don't want to stare at it, you know?

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