I started Emacs like this: emacs -fn -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--20-200-75-75-c-100-iso10646-1 The result screenshot will demonstrate the problem, which is that -Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-Normal--20-200-75-75-C-100-ISO10646-1 is said to be used but the visuals are inconsistent in height and other font properties. Compare the '#include' to 'stdexcept' or look anywhere in the screenshot to see other examples of inconsistent properties. C-u C-x = on the "good" and "bad" characters ('#' and 's' in the first line of the screenshot) produce the information at the end, which I also included in the screenshot. This was supposed to be addressed by the new font backend, so I hope it's fixable. Thanks Ted