Programming fonts you might not have tried

If you’re tired of the ugly-as-sin Courier New and have tried the popular well-known scalable TrueType/OpenType mono-spaced/fixed-width replacements:

• Apple’s Monaco
• Bitstream’s Vera Sans Mono
• Microsoft’s Andale Mono
• Microsoft’s Consolas
• My own Envy Code R

And you’re still not feeling it then why not give these potentials a quick spin.

Anonymous

Anonymous is typographer Mark Simonson’s reworking of a bit-mapped Mac font from the mid-90’s into scalable TrueType form.

Rather unusually some of the characters have serifs and others do not – most likely due to the space restrictions of the original bitmap font but carried through to the design.

The overall feel is one that is less cluttered than Courier whilst also hanging onto the past – strangely enough anything written in Anonymous immediately makes me think it could be SQL syntax.

Character similarity does exist a little between the 1 and the l and the backwards slash through the zero might not be your cup-of-tea but it’s certainly worth a look.

Available: free from Mark Simonson Studio.

Crystal

A geometric styled mono-spaced font with distinguishable 0 and O, 1 and l, 5 and S that looks best at 15pt and above so maybe one for the programmer who prefers large fonts.

Available: free from Urban Fonts.

Onuava

Another geometric design that works best at larger sizes. It has a slashed 0 and distinguishable glyphs.

Available: free from Urban Fonts.

Share Technical Monospaced

For those that like very square fonts this one could be a contender – providing the author can fix the problem where an f and an l placed together causes both to disappear – an unexpected empty ligature perhaps?

Available: free from Typo3.

Feel free to comment on any other great finds but please, no more references to bit mapped pixel fonts!

If you’re wondering what the state of Envy Code R is… I’m trying to solve the various issues with the heights at certain levels. I think the solution to the problems is delta-hinting but it is a bit of a black art and I don’t have the right tools for the job.

Envy Code R has been updated since this post.

[)amien