Re: Semi-OT: font advice

[Tim X <timx@spamto.devnul.com>]

>>>>> "Jesse" == Jesse Sheidlower <jester@panix.com> writes:


 Jesse> I recently got a new computer, and the monitor's resolution at
 Jesse> 1400 x 1050 is such that the default font, which seems to be
 Jesse> "-adobe-courier-medium-r-normal--12-120-75-75-m-70-iso8859-1",
 Jesse> is too small to comfortably read. I am trying to find a font
 Jesse> that is better but am having trouble working with the fonts,
 Jesse> and would appreciate some advice.

 Jesse> The fonts I can choose from Shift-Mouse-1 are generally either
 Jesse> too small to be comfortably legible, or too large to fit
 Jesse> happily in a window. For example the "9x15" font, which is
 Jesse> "-Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-Normal--15-140-75-75-C-90-ISO8859-1", is
 Jesse> a good shape but too large for seeing good chunks of
 Jesse> programs. I very much like the shape of the "fixed" font,
 Jesse> which is
 Jesse> "-Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-SemiCondensed--13-120-75-75-C-60-ISO8859-1",
 Jesse> but it's way too small, yet I don't seem to have a larger
 Jesse> version of this available.

 Jesse> The font I have in my terminal window isn't bad, but I don't
 Jesse> know what it is in terms of the "-*-*-" form--I'm running
 Jesse> Gnome, and it's chosen from a menu as being in the "Monospace"
 Jesse> family, regular, 11 pt.

 Jesse> I guess my biggest problem is that I don't know how to browse
 Jesse> the fonts on my system from within Emacs in a way that shows
 Jesse> me what they really look like and what their formal names
 Jesse> are. I've read through the Wiki and other places and don't
 Jesse> really know what to try next. Any advice, either for a
 Jesse> specific font or for ways to better browse what I have? I'm
 Jesse> happy to install any fonts on my system.

 Jesse> Another thing is that when I do specify a font in my .emacs
 Jesse> with something like

 Jesse> (set-face-font 'default
 Jesse> "-Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-Normal--15-140-75-75-C-90-ISO8859-1")

 Jesse> I then can't run Emacs in a terminal window (i.e. starting up
 Jesse> with "emacs -nw")--I get a error "Error in init file: error:
 Jesse> "X windows are not in use or not initialized"". Assuming I do
 Jesse> eventually find a nice font, how do I use it in X without
 Jesse> screwing up my non-X sessions?

 Jesse> Thanks very much. I'm running GNU Emacs 21.3.1, if that
 Jesse> matters.

 Jesse> Jesse Sheidlower


Probably the easiest way to change the font is to use xfontsel, which
will give you a way of selecting different fonts based on foundry,
family, weight, slant, width, point size, resolution, registry style
etc. Once you have found a font which you think is good, cut and
select it and then run emacs with the -fn argument to set the font
using the one you have just selected. If it looks good, then put that
into your .Xresources file with a line like

emacs*font: <font spec from xfontsel>

then as long as xrdb runs and loads your.Xresources when you login,
the default emacs font will be set to that value. Note that most
modern .inux distributions are configured by default to load personal
.Xresources.

Also, a very useful command in emacs 21.x is M-x list-faces-display.

Tim

-- 
Tim Cross
The e-mail address on this message is FALSE (obviously!). My real e-mail is
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