Visual Studio Code is one of the most popular code editors available, period. It has easy to learn features for all kinds of users. There are so many options in VS Code code editor that it can be overwhelming.
If you are looking for a more efficient coding experience, you should consider changing your font. This way, every time you open VS Code, you will get a boost in productivity boosting your creativity.
The importance of text appearance in a website is not to be underestimated, and especially so in the case of Visual Studio Code which has a blank interface for content creators. In this article, I’ll be outlining some best practices when it comes to choosing a font, font size, and color when developing websites. If you’re a developer working with Visual Studio Code, you likely know that the code editor has its own built-in typeface and style. But what if you want to use a different font? In this blog post, we’ll explore the best font to use in Visual Studio Code and give you some tips on how to find and use it. We’ll also cover some common scenarios where you might want to switch fonts, and explain how to do it easily
Benefits of Visual Studio code
With support for hundreds of languages, VS Code helps you be instantly productive with syntax highlighting, bracket-matching, auto-indentation, box-selection, snippets, and more. Intuitive keyboard shortcuts, easy customization and community-contributed keyboard shortcut mappings let you navigate your code with ease.
Below, you will find a list of 17 Best Font to Use in Visual Studio Code:
- Monaco
- Source Code Pro
- Menlo
- Consolas
- Dank Mono
- Gintronic
- Monoid – Open Source Coding Font
- Hack
- Mono Lisa – Font Follows Function
- Jet Brains Mono – a Typeface for Developers
- Ira Code – Free Monospaced Font with Programming Ligatures
- Source Code Pro
- Droid Sans Mono – an Open-Source Sans-Serif Font
- Press Start 2P
- DejaVu Sans Mono
- Anonymous Pro
- IBM 3270
Best Font to Use in Visual Studio Code
Monaco
Monaco is the default font used by OSX before Snow Leopard. Characters are distinct so its difficult to confuse 0O and 1lI. I like this font because of its special style that makes me feel like using OSX again (I am using Ubuntu mainly now).
When you’re working on a project and want to add some style, there are a few great options for fonts in Visual Studio Code. One of the most popular options is Monaco, which offers a clean and modern look that works well with both code and prose. Here are five reasons why you should consider using Monaco as your default font:
1. It Looks Good Across PlatformsMonaco looks great on both Windows and macOS, so it’s perfect for any project. Plus, if you ever need to switch to a different font on one of these platforms, Monaco is easy to find and replace.
2. It’s Light and Easy on the EyesMonaco isn’t too heavy or blocky, so it’s good for longer lines of code or text that needs to be legible from a distance. Plus, its contemporary design makes it an attractive choice for any project.
3. It Offers Great Typography SupportMonaco includes all the basic typography features you’ll need, like bolding and italics. Plus, its OpenType features make it easy to create custom typesetting rules without having to learn complex syntaxes.
4. It Looks Good in Any Environment
Source Code Pro
Source Code Pro is designed by Adobe. Overall the text looks clearer than other fonts, not to mention its distinguishable characters.
Menlo
Menlo is the new default font in macOS for Xcode and Terminal. It is a derivative of DejaVu Sans Mono. Personally I like Monaco better since I was using OSX from long time ago, but Menlo is also a good choice for programming.
Visual Studio Code is a cross-platform code editor that supports many languages, including C++. One of the best fonts to use in Visual Studio Code is Menlo. Menlo is available as an add-on for Visual Studio Code and can be installed by opening the Extensions tab in the preferences and searching for “Menlo”. Once installed, Menlo can be used to improve the appearance of your code editor.Menlo is a monospaced typeface that features clean lines and straight edges. It’s designed for programming and has a modern look that will fit in with most code bases. The font is free to use and includes both regular and italic versions.Using Menlo in Visual Studio Code will give your code some improved looks and makes it easier to read. It’s also compatible with many other coding tools, such as GitHub and StackOverflow, so you can use it on any platform you need. If you’re looking for an updated font that will look great in your code editor, try Menlo!
UPDATE: Menlo is no longer the default font in macOS. In macOS High Sierra, the default font has been changed to San Francisco Mono, which is also a great choice for programming. Thanks to Ivan Cantarino and p13t3rm.
Consolas
Consolas is the default font for Microsoft Visual Studio. It is very popular because it is shipped with Windows. Personally I don’t quite like the l character since it is easily confused with 1.
Space Mono
Space Mono is designed by Colophon Foundry and is a great monospace font. Two cons that I don’t like: (1) l might confuse with 1 (2) , is not distinguishable with . under 14pt font size.
Dank Mono
Phil Plückthun’s Dank Mono is billed as a font “designed for aesthetes with code and Retina displays in mind”. Like Fira Code, it has programming ligatures, and there’s also a cursive italic variant that’s useful for distinguishing different types of text within your code. Overall this font has been created for coders who have an eye for design, and the unusual lowercase ‘f’ is known for being particularly beloved among Dank fans.
Dank supports the Western, Eastern, Central and Southern European Latin character sets, and you can use it within CodePen. To get Dank, you’ll need to pay – a personal licence is £24 and a commercial one is £60. But if you’re a type connoisseur and you’re smitten with that jaunty ‘f’, it might well be worth treating yourself to some Dankness.
Buy Dank Mono from Phil Plückthun on Gumroad
Gintronic
Creator Mark Frömberg describes Gintronic as “jovial” and “gentle” – an antidote to what he sees as the overly technical and mechanical style of many programming fonts. The font is relaxed and easy to look at, with a few particular characters adding a special personality – check out the curly brackets, the question mark, the lower case ‘k’ and the numerals. Extra attention has been given to glyphs that can be hard to tell apart, such as ‘B’ and ‘8’, ‘i’’ and ‘l’ and so on, in order to make them easy to distinguish at a glance.
There are 1,174 glyphs in total, so Gintronic has a massive character set, which includes Latin, Cyrillic and Greek characters as well as a full range of mathematical and technical symbols. Gintronic is priced at €50 for the single font, €100 for the Roman or Italic bundle and €150 for the complete family.
Buy Gintronic from Mark Frömberg
Monoid – Open Source Coding Font
Monoid is another popular monospace typeface that developers love.
Its large apertures and short ascenders & descenders make this font stand out from the rest.
Monoid also supports ligatures and includes a cool little feature where you can see Font Awesome icons directly in your code.
Andreas Larsen drew up a list of priorities when he set out to design Monoid. He wanted it to be legible, compact (the more code you can fit on one screen, the better), and “pretty”. To achieve all this, he compared three other programming fonts – Fira Mono, Source Code Pro and Pragmata Pro – and took note of features he liked and those he didn’t in order to inform his design.
https://59767c42e22f098f90cce5f89e809243.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
Like many programming fonts, Monoid has extra-large punctuation marks and operators, apertures are large to help make characters more distinguishable, and ascenders and descenders are kept short. Smart design decisions have been taken to make Monoid both compact and highly legible. It has programming ligatures, and there’s also a special feature called Monoisome which enables you to see Font Awesome icons in your code. Monoid is free and open source, so you can even tweak it to your tastes if you like.
Get Monoid from larsenwork.com
Check out Monoid here!
Hack
The fonts we’ve covered so far include some with huge character sets and several variants, so it’s likely you’ll find something that’s just right. But if you have very specific needs, Hack could be the best monotype font for your coding. It offers a whole library of alternative glyphs made by users that you can add to if you like.
Hack is therefore highly customisable – you can dif right down into the detail of each glyph and edit it yourself if no one else has done it exactly as you want. Hack is free and open source. Go to alt-hack, the alternative glyph library, to find out how to create your own custom version.
Get Hack from sourcefoundry.org
Read more:
- Perfect font pairings
- Font vs typeface: the ultimate guide
- Free web fonts: The best fonts for web
Mono Lisa – Font Follows Function
MonoLisa features a few unique techniques that increase the legibility and make it visually pleasant to look at for longer periods of time.
This is my personal favorite font to use for programming. I found this font in early 2020 and used it on CodePen for a while before purchasing a license so I could use it locally in VSCode and also on my personal website.
Is it pricey? Yes. But I believe the subtle differences in this typeface makes the viewing experience substantially better.
Check out MonoLisa here!
Jet Brains Mono – a Typeface for Developers
JetBrains has a whole suite of code editors for developers and they also have their own monospace font. JetBrains Mono stands out from a lot of other typefaces due to its increased height and code-specific ligatures.
Before I bought MonoLisa, I was using JetBrains Mono. It’s simple and beautiful. And free!
Check out JetBrains Mono here!
Ira Code – Free Monospaced Font with Programming Ligatures
A classic that many developers are sure to love, Fira Coda is a free typeface from Nikita Prokopov.
Fira Code is ASCII-compatible and comes with many ligatures making the code easier to read.
Check out Fira Code here!
Source Code Pro
Source Code Pro is an open source typeface that was released by Adobe in 2012 and has over 17k stars on GitHub.
It became extremely popular in the developer community and can be downloaded for free!
Check out Source Code Pro here!
Droid Sans Mono – an Open-Source Sans-Serif Font
Droid Sans Mono is a typeface released by Steve Matteson for the Android ecosystem.
A lot of developers love this font, but distinguishing between O and 0 becomes difficult because the typeface doesn’t not have a slashed zero or dotted zero.
Thankfully, GitHub user AlbertoDorado altered the font and released a version with dotted and slashed zeros.
Press Start 2P
Okay, so maybe Press Start 2p isn’t exactly one of the best programming fonts for daily use. But if you want to give yourself a retro vacation and jump back to the days of making your Commodore 64 jump through hoops, this is a great way to do it. We aren’t sure about the preventing eyestrain with it, but you set the editor to a black background and lime-green text and you have one of the best programming fonts out there. At least for nostalgia and fun.
DejaVu Sans Mono
Derived from Bitstream Vera, DejaVu is also a great free licensed font. Sans Mono clearly distinguishes 0O and 1lI. The dot inside 0 is a little small compared to Hack but overall this font makes people comfortable.
Anonymous Pro
I like Anonymous Pro because it gives a typewriter feeling. Also the < character is narrower than Hack which makes it feel like a symbol.
IBM 3270
IBM 3270 is based on the font used in IBM 3270 terminal, made by IBM in 1971. This font is great for programming purpose and gives a retro style (although I’m not quite getting used to it).
Note this font is relatively small, so my suggestion is to increase the font size and decrease the line height to make it more readable on the screen.
how To Use Fonts in Visual Studio Code
In Visual Studio Code, you can use the Fonts pane to change the font of your code editor. This is useful if you want to use a different font for different languages or if you need to increase or decrease the size of your code. To use fonts in Visual Studio Code:
1. Open the Fonts pane by selecting Window > Fonts.
2. Select the fonts that you want to use from the list on the left side of the Fonts pane. You can also search for a font by name or keyword using theSearch field at the top of the Fonts pane.
3. Click on a font file to select it and then click on the Use button (the orange arrow) next to its name to open up its properties window.
4. Change any of the properties that you want, such as Size, Style, and Weight. You can also choose whether or not to include unicode characters in your font.
5. Click OK when you finish changing any properties and then Close() the Properties window when you’re done.
Conclusion
Fonts play an important role in enhancing the beauty of any text. For programmers especially, selecting the best programming fonts is of prime importance. Today’s virtual world is all about technology and its influence on human life. Because of this, computer-based businesses are booming rapidly.