Adobe's new free font: Source Code Pro

September 26, 2012
#coding
#emacs
#linux

Adobe yesterday released its free and open source Type family, Source Code Pro, which includes an eye-pleasing monospace font ideally suited for coding. In the past, and at the recommendation of Fernando Perez, I’ve used the beautiful (but non-free) Consolas by Microsoft; now, which is best?

To install on Linux:

  1. Grab the font.
  2. Copy the files to ~/.fonts.
  3. Run fc-cache -f -v.

The font should now be available for selection in apps such as Firefox, Gnome Terminal, etc. To make it the default font in Emacs::

    (set-default-font "Source Code Pro")

Here’s a comparison of Consolas (left) and Source Code Pro (right):

Comparison: Consolas vs Source Code Pro

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