Give Your Eyes a Treat

brad — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 09:59:23 +0200

I subscribe to the IEBlog because it is always good for a laugh, or good to see exactly how much they are copying from the rest of the community. Recently Bill Hill, the Program Manager for Internet Explorer posted a little blurb about using their nice Consolas font for use in CMD.exe (Microsoft's built in emulator of the 1980's command prompt, for the linux readers out there). Now, I dig the Microsoft fonts, they are very pretty, and very unfortunately licensed (sidebar: who decides to improve web, terminal, and printing with a series of fonts, and then puts licenses that impede their adoption?). I Have them installed on my Linux system, and while the may not have the full features of ClearType under linux, they still look damn good. So, Mr. Hill posted this how-to use it as your default console font, so I thought I would do the same. I am going to repeat his instructions so it benefits any windows users. I am not going to cover installing the fonts on either platform because it is pretty easy.
Windows

    reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Console\TrueTypeFont" /v 00 /d Consolas

    logoff

     Note: In Windows Vista, you need to run the reg command from an elevated command prompt.
When you log back in, Consolas will be an option in the “Command Prompt” Properties. (n.b., Bryn tells me it actually shows up before you relog, but it won’t work.)

Linux/Gnome/Ubuntu
You can do the equivalent in Ubuntu using gconf-editor from the command prompt, but you don't need to elevate privileges, and you need to browse to apps -> gnome-terminal -> profiles -> Default, and change the "font" key. You could also do it system wide and browse to desktop -> gnome -> interface, and edit the monospace_font_name key to "Consolas 10". I find this a little complex, so I tried to see if there was a less obscure way. Turns out there is:
Open a terminal:

Right click the terminal, choose "Edit Current Profile...", and left click:

Uncheck "Use the system fixed width font", and click on the named font (not sure of the default, I already had it set to Consolas 10):

Choose Consolas (or any installed font), and I prefer 10 points, because it ends up being about the same size on screen:

Alternate method
Alternately, you could do it system wide (well, gnome/free desktop wide), by navigating to the top menu in the Gnome environment, choosing System -> Appearance, click on the Font tab, and change the Fixed width font with the font chooser. If you prefer using the keyboard you can just hit Alt-F1, right, right, down, right, down, down, down, Enter, right, right, Alt-F, then type 'Consolas' (or type until it reaches the desired font, I find this is about 'Con'), Tab, Tab, enter "10" or select with the down/up keys, and hit Enter, and Esc.

[sarcasm]Boy, I wish the Linux desktop wasn't as complex and niche as the Windows desktop. I find everyday tweaks require such effort.[/sarcasm]