Back to: Blog

ProFont

After wasting a half hour because I didn’t see that a comma was actually a period, I installed ProFont on my Mac and PC dev machines and set it as the default font in my text editors (though I may settle on Sheldon).

Popularity: 4% [?]

Posted February 8th, 2005 @ 11:45 PM

13 Replies

Reinier adds this Comment:

I’m using it for over a half year now, and haven’t changed font ever since.

February 9th, 2005 at 4:28 am
AdamStac adds this Comment:

Thanks for that tip…very helpful Alex!

February 9th, 2005 at 4:39 am
Keith adds this Comment:

What font *were* you using?

February 9th, 2005 at 6:31 am
Alex adds this Comment:

Monaco - which is also not bad.

February 9th, 2005 at 8:23 am
David adds this Comment:

You might want to take a look at Anonymous. for another monospace code font.

February 9th, 2005 at 9:35 am
Jon S adds this Comment:

I’ll second the Anonymous font. I tried ProFont, it was a bit heavy for my LCDs.

February 9th, 2005 at 12:57 pm
gaston adds this Comment:

Totally go for ProggyClean. If you like Profont and sheldon, I believe you’ll love it.

http://www.proggyfon[...]enu=download

February 10th, 2005 at 4:20 pm
simon adds this Comment:

if you’re having serious problems with 0oO 1lI ,.;: there’s nothing to beat having DPCustomMono briefly available.

http://dp.rastko.net[...]t_sample.php

February 13th, 2005 at 6:43 am
AdamStac adds this Comment:

Oh yes, I like Anonymous much better than ProFont. Thanks for writing this Alex…ProFont was nice, but Anonymous is much easier to read on my LCD with ClearType enabled as well.

February 20th, 2005 at 10:00 pm
Alderete adds this Comment:

This topic came up a little while ago at Typographica, and another font recommended there was Pragmata, which is a commercial face ($62 at the link above).

There were also a number of recommendations for Bitstream’s Vera Mono, which is free.

Further down, the comments degrade into typography nerd name-calling and such. Kinda entertaining, actually.

February 24th, 2005 at 2:11 am
Alderete adds this Comment:

I have to say, though, that I use Andale Mono inside Eudora, and Monaco 10 in BBEdit, and have always been pretty happy with them…

February 24th, 2005 at 2:35 am
NnTjF adds this Comment:

Guys That a great site- great job done thanks…

June 11th, 2005 at 8:11 pm
Glenn adds this Comment:

ProFont is great but it does have some serious weaknesses. Don’t get me wrong, I still use often from time-to-time because ProFont really rocks. But in some situations, some fonts really do turn out better than ProFont, in various aspects.

Find out here (and ProFont’s weaknesses):

BATTLE OF THE SMALL FONTS
http://home.graffiti[...]allfonts.jpg

In this situation, Anonymous really comes in on top for me. And ironically, it wasn’t intended to be a small font to begin with, yet turns out to be a potentially great programming small font.

Anonymous is well known to be artistically nice. Yet, it’s mono-spaced. It’s known to have some weaknesses, though particularly with ClearType and general clarity/cramp collisions with touching underscores and some characters. Thankfully, in this situation without ClearType and in FlashDevelop (together with some cool dark color settings), Anonymous shines really well.

The Contender/Runner-Up reviews
———————————
2nd place: ProFont

ProFont’s strenghts vs. Anonymous

ProFont has always been the MOST consistent in character spacing and the characters NEVER touch. This results in a very neat, blocky font that makes your program look EXTREMELY neat and in real good order. But it’s true that spacings can be a bit too wide such that ease of readability does suffer somewhat, involving a certain degree of strain. ProFont’s “wide consistency” is both a strength and weakness. Compare it with the other fonts where whose characters are closer together and therefore easier to read. Also, Anonymous have defined serifs which really adds to sementic meaningfulness and allows the user to read much faster than you would with ProFont, yet still maintians a consistency. But this consistency is known as “compact consistency”, something which ProFont lacks severely. Which do we prefer? One which look “cleaner” but strains the eyes more, or the other which may look “crowdier” but is faster/easier to read? Frankly, the latter seems like a better a option.

Anonymous might seem more cramped/messier unlike ProFont’s neatness, but it’s compact and very readable because of this situation. When i tried reading over ProFont or Proggy, I couldn’t absorb as much meaning as quickly as I could with Anonymous. Somehow, Anonymous truly brings out the personality of individual words really well, and on the whole, brings out the structure and meaning of the program FAR more than what ProFont will ever have. When viewing in ProFont (and Proggy as well), those fonts seem far more impersonal, and it’s hard to draw out sementic meaning quickly with those fonts. Yet with Anonymous, it really has the tendency to make this chunk of “meaningless code” appear as understandable as plain English. Only Anonymous smartly differentiates out the variables vs. numbers vs. operators very well. I’m extremely impressed. Anonymous also shows why serifs really add sementic meaning to a chunk of code. Maybe that’s why even the notoriously “ugly” Courier New is still being used as the default font in most IDEs, and why it’s generally readable and easy on the eyes as well. With mathetmatical calculations such as these, Proggy and ProFont comes out as meaningless garble while Anonymous shines in readability and understanding.

So yes, Anonymous may look not as neat and lean compared to ProFont. But try reading and understanding those math calculations with ProFont. Which is easier? Anonymous turns out easier for me.

3rd place: Proggy

Proggy’s main weakness:

Proggy is inconsistent in it’s spacings. Sure, both Proggy and Anonymous collide, but Proggy is inconsistent unlike Anonymous which still maintains a “tight compacted” consistency. Honestly, Proggy is really like a buggy font imo and I wonder why some people might like to use it. Sure, the individual glyphs are very clean, attractive and easy on the eyes, but that’s it. The entire typeface seriously needs improvements/fixes.

Why more Anonymous?
——————-

Anonymous also allows you to work in the super-compact pt 6, the smallest font-size i’ve ever seen. And guess what? It’s still just as readable, neat and sementically meaningful! Check out the screenshot.
http://home.graffiti[...]/anon6pt.JPG

I really wished the author could create a version of Anonymous that works crisply with ClearType as well. The serifs really make my day, and makes a GREAT difference to small font readability. There are many cases I’ve seen Anonymous not work the way it should, but it works here. Imo, it’s the best programming font (at least) in this situation. Hope you have some luck with this font.

Scores:
Compactness - Anonymous wins
Sementic Readability - Anonymous wins
Neatness & Structure - Anonymous and ProFont tied.

July 22nd, 2008 at 1:39 am

Add a Comment

Please note: Use of a non-personal web site or blog in the field below and/or comments that are off-topic, personal attacks, or support requests will likely be removed at my discretion.