Font for mac osx that is as readable and compact as the default xterm (X11) font

macos fonts terminal sysadmin
dreeves picture dreeves · Dec 19, 2008 · Viewed 14.5k times · Source

The font used in xterms is extremely compact yet readable. What font is that? The closest I've found that I can use in other other applications is DejaVu Sans Mono or Bitstream Vera Sans Mono. Those are as compact as xterms vertically but take up more space horizontally.

I'd really like to switch from xterms to Terminal.app and this is the one thing holding me back.

(I also think that font would be much better for emacs, xcode, or whatever editor.)

ADDED: In Terminal.app you can adjust the character and line spacing for any font. Is this possible in other applications?

I'm open to any other font that is as compact and readable as the xterm font. Dina looks really nice but it doesn't seem to work for Mac.

Answer

Marty Vona picture Marty Vona · Dec 30, 2009

I have successfully gotten Emacs.App to use the beloved misc-fixed 7x14 font. And it looks GOOD.

1) download ucs-fonts.tar.gz from http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs-fonts.html

2) extract the file 7x14.bdf

3) install FontForge (fontforge.sourceforge.net)

4) open 7x14.bdf in fontforge

5) in fontforge do File->Generate Fonts with "No Outline Font" and "Apple bitmap only sfont (dfont)"

6) save as /Library/Fonts/FixedMedium7x14.dfont

7) in your .emacs (setq default-font "-apple-Fixed-medium-normal-normal--14----m-0-iso10646-1")

8) WIN

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