New free monospace programming font by Mark Simonson: Anonymous Pro

This font is not new. This re-release has been out over a year and its predecessor (Anonymous) has been around almost ten. I've seen it in plenty of "best programming fonts" articles.<p>That said, it is nice to have something different from the usual simple sans model of most modern monospaces (e.g., Deja Vu Sans Mono, Consolas, and Inconsolata). Anonymous has a lot of character – which either interests or annoys you.<p>It's been my default in Vim for some months now.

Every couple of months I try a new programming font, but I always go back to Inconsolata.

I wonder what the world would be like if somebody designed a nice variable-width font for typesetting code. It would be different than a font designed for setting English, but I wonder if we wouldn't get the same benefits of beauty and legibility.<p>I mean, it's kinda silly that we continue to program in fixed-width type, given what modern software can do with setting type on the fly...

I wonder how this stacks up with Microsoft's Consolas font. I've been using it as my default for a few years now.

I've been using regular Anonymous for a while now. Now when I see it, I think "That looks like my code." The "0" character being slashed the normal way and staying inside the circle is a welcome change. If he was concerned with it looking too much like a Ø character, he could have used a dotted zero I suppose although these kinds of details are capable of spurring wars.<p>Anyway, it looks nice in everything I switched over... except Komodo Edit which renders the line heights wrong at pts lower than 14. I'm willing to blame that on the editor though.<p>Highly recommend it.

It took me years of programming (and even more years of being a computer user) to realize that it's worth choosing a programming font. It honestly hadn't occurred to me.<p>I've been using Monaco for a while, mostly because it's the "happiest" looking font I've found. Going to be giving this font a test drive now.

Another nice choice, on the sans-serif side, is an APL font from dyalog (even if you're not an APL programmer). It has a certain old-school charm that pleases me.<p><a href="http://www.dyalog.com/downloads/fonts/Apl385.ttf" rel="nofollow">http://www.dyalog.com/downloads/fonts/Apl385.ttf</a>

I've been a die hard programmer font snob for years and have been using Bitstream Vera Sans Mono or Deja Vu Sans Mono. Mostly because it's free and can be used on all platforms.<p>Then, Apple released Snow Leopard with Menlo. It had just enough small little changes that at a slightly smaller point size it was easier to read. I fell in love. I've actually now trained my self to really enjoy using 10 point unaliased Monaco on small screens and enjoy it immensely as well.

Hrm, the images on the site look fuzzy, could not stand to look at that for long. The font is also a bit too…expressive? The round shapes are very prominent. There seems to be some disproportion to some letters which makes text look uneven to my eyes.<p>I use SGIscreen at 13px, no antialias.<p><i>Edit:</i> not the best showcase but here is an old screenshot: <a href="http://files.kittensoft.org/vim_ruby.png" rel="nofollow">http://files.kittensoft.org/vim_ruby.png</a>

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned monofur yet. <a href="http://eurofurence.net/monofur.html" rel="nofollow">http://eurofurence.net/monofur.html</a><p>It's my favourite programming font because it's extremely readable but retails a little flare.

What are some good, widely-available variable-width fonts that also help distinguish commonly-confused characters (O, 0, I, l, 1, etc.)?<p>The verdana here at HN is reasonable, but what if I wanted an even stronger distinction -- especially on the zeros -- without going fully monospace? I'm thinking of a reference-info use case where precision is important, but code-like alignment isn't.

Why does the font matter? This is a serious question. I use the default font on all of my editors and I've never had a problem. I can tell ohs from zeros and els from ones, etc. And I don't care about different types of serifs or other typographical nuances. Do most of the advantages come when using alphabets besides English?<p>Why are custom programming fonts so popular?

Bitstream Vera Sans Mono 4 evah! :) Has a dot in the center of '0' which differentiates it from 'O' but is more readable than a slash.<p><a href="http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/ttf-bitstream-vera/1.10/" rel="nofollow">http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/ttf-bitstream-vera/1....</a>

I've been using "Envy Code R" ( <a href="http://damieng.com/blog/2008/05/26/envy-code-r-preview-7-coding-font-released" rel="nofollow">http://damieng.com/blog/2008/05/26/envy-code-r-preview-7-cod...</a> ) for awhile. I find it much more readable.

Hey Mark, if you're reading this: your font looks fantastic, sincerely on par with Inconsolata. BUT, the pointer arrow -&#62; renders with the dash off center from the point of the &#62;. It's too much of a distraction to switch.

Comparison on monospaced fonts: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ajstarks/3618903870/sizes/o/in/photostream/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/ajstarks/3618903870/sizes/o/in/...</a>

I've tried (and continue to try) several programming fonts, but always stick with Terminus. In my opinion, it is the most readable font at 8px, and I like being able to fit as much as possible in a screenful without losing readability. Most of the other fonts I've tried seem more suited for sizes 10pt and larger, and that's fine, I would consider them for usage in my web browser, or some other place. But my console windows are all Terminus.

I use my own customised bitmap font under Linux. I couldn't get the font working under OS-X, but didn't try very hard as Linux is on all my main machines.<p>I have it here in case anyone is interested in it. It allows me to fit 4 terminals across on a 1920x1200 screen nicely with a bit of room to spare.<p><a href="http://wtf.geek.nz/2010/09/my-small-programmers-font/" rel="nofollow">http://wtf.geek.nz/2010/09/my-small-programmers-font/</a>

Unfortunately, its nice auto-hinted varieties do not kick in before 11 points, and doesn't really look nice until 12 pt. If I had an 11 or 12 point defaulted in my terminals, there is no way I'd be able to put more than one or two of them on one screen at most--and even then, with overlap--which sort of defeats the point.<p>To use this font, I need it to work non-crudely at 9 or 10 pt too.

Right now I am using Mensch font ( <a href="http://robey.lag.net/2010/06/21/mensch-font.html" rel="nofollow">http://robey.lag.net/2010/06/21/mensch-font.html</a> ). It is very readable and solid. I tried right now this post's font Anonymous Pro, also Envy Code R and Inconsolata but returned back to Mensch. They were not bad but I didn't liked them enough to switch.

What pt size do people use for their Anti-Aliased programming fonts? I currently use a 10pt bitmapped font and everytime I try a font that is 'smoothed' it ends up looking like out of focus dreck at that size.<p>I'm curious whether I'm odd for using such a small typeface, noticing the effect of AA on such a small typeface, or caring about it. I can't decide which.

I've been using this for a few months now; it's by far my favorite programming font. Every little detail is so finely crafted and well-proportioned. For example, with Monaco it always bothered me that / and \ were slightly taller, or that &#60; and &#62; looked funny - in Anonymous Pro everything's just right.

This looks strange: In the 'all characters' tab, the Greek omega appears only with a stress, not in its regular form. Is this usual with fonts or a peculiarity of this one? I actually got excited to have a nice Greek-enabled font, but this threw me off.

Not good enough at small resolutions, and looks horrible with light on dark colors. ProFontWindows doesn't suffer from this, and works at small sizes.<p><a href="http://www.tobias-jung.de/seekingprofont/" rel="nofollow">http://www.tobias-jung.de/seekingprofont/</a>

Thank you.<p>This is the first 'programmer font' that I like enough to consider using instead of Lucida Console.<p>Yes, others seem to look nice and whatever, but Lucida Console is efficient. More information in less space without looking crowded.

That's a good looking code font. However, I still love my Droid Sans Mono :)

Looks like there are some coders out there that actually know why having good typography is valid and don't just take whatever is out there as is usually the case.

Droid Sans Mono. You can't improve over perfection; can you?

Nice slashed zero, The letter 'l' nicely distinguishes from one, greek character support and bitmap support for those who hate anti-aliasing. Simply wonderful.

Fonts are like religions. I still pray to god of bitmapped Monaco 10. 11 is good too. I've never seen anything that can shake my faith :-).

Am I the only one who thinks that nothing comes close to Fixedsys (Excelsior) for programming?

You can pry ProggySquare from my cold dead hands.

I love it. I think it's even better than consolas and I've been using consolas for years.<p><pre><code> ;(set-default-font "Consolas 11") (set-default-font "Anonymous Pro 11")</code></pre>

apt-get install xfonts-terminus

in the i's and !'s the periods tend to run together. at 10pt<p>everything else looks great