Scott Hanselman

Using Consolas as the Windows Console Font

June 12, 2005 Comment on this post [10] Posted in TechEd
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Simon Guest and I have been trying to figure out how to use our new favorite font, Consolas, as a font for the command console.

(I'm afraid I can't distribute Consolas online or provide a download out of abject fear. That said, you can find it in any version of the Longhorn bits.)

Seems you can get Consolas out of the Microsoft "Powerpoint Presentation Viewer" free of charge here, which, as a side effect, installs the new Vista fonts. Thanks to Tyler Cole for the tip.

You can add it to the list of fonts available to the console by adding it to

HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Windows NT/CurrentVersion/Console/TrueTypeFont

There is a KB article discribing how to add a font to the command prompt

In my case I added a REG_SZ with the name "00" and the value "Consolas." Then you have to REBOOT. Apparently the reboot is important otherwise you won't get the correct results and you'll see MS Sans Serif instead.

 Consolas

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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June 12, 2005 18:40
Great tip, but my font in the cmd window is always in italic. How could I avoid this behaviour?
June 12, 2005 19:38
Personally, I've been quite pleased with the results of using a proportional-spaced font (such as Tahoma) for code. Yes, it takes a little while to get used to, but once you do, code reads a bit more like text than just code.
June 12, 2005 21:57
Giampaolo, I had this happen to me, so I moved the Consolas fonts OUT of the Fonts folder the moved them BACK in and it was fixed.
June 13, 2005 18:17
how about a screenshot?
June 15, 2005 3:06
Great! Thank you Scott, it works now (how did you find this trick of moving out the ttf from the fonts folder?? :)
Screenshot here: http://www.bellavite.com/blog/File/consolasscreen.gif
June 15, 2005 4:10
okay, i'm digging into my longhorn bits and don't see the font -- what is the TTF file name?
tim
June 15, 2005 19:44
It would be helpful to see a screenshot including the following critical characters when choosing a fixed-width font for programming:

'"`
:;.,
{}()[]<>
0Oo
Ll1Ii|

I currently use Monaco as my default fixed-width font in as many places as possible, but I'm always open to suggestions.

see http://www.lowing.org/fonts/
June 22, 2005 2:13
I noticed in your registry some settings for international charaters. Do you know if Consolas or any other monospaced font will support a full unicode set?
June 22, 2005 2:18
I believe it depends on the font. According to CharMap.exe, Consolas goes up to U+FB02
July 06, 2005 23:05
I wonder how long it will be before someone from Argentina (Kzu?) will blog about what Consolas means in colloquial Argentinian? :)

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in any way.