04 May 2006

Consolas Font Pack for VS 2005

Microsoft has released a set of monospaced ClearType fonts, called Consolas, intended for use in programming environments (e.g. VS 2005). In the past, I've not been a huge fan of ClearType fonts (they tend to look a little fuzzy to me). However, I've been using the Consolas fonts for about a day and, so far, I like it. I did have to bump my original font size up to 11 (from 10) to get rid of most of the "fuzziness". Per the Consolas download page:

Brief Description
Optimized for Microsoft ClearTypeThe Microsoft Consolas Font Family is a set of highly legible fonts designed for ClearType. It is intended for use in programming environments and other circumstances where a monospaced font is specified. This installation package will set the default font for Visual Studio to Consolas.

Overview
Consolas is intended for use in programming environments and other circumstances where a monospaced font is specified. All characters have the same width, like old typewriters, making it a good choice for personal and business correspondence. Optimizing the font specifically for ClearType allowed a design with proportions closer to normal text than traditional monospaced fonts like Courier. This allows for more comfortable reading of extended text on-screen.

The package will change the default text face in Visual Studio to the Consolas family.

This package is only intended for licensed users of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005.