[comp.fonts] Best font for LISP listings?

mcw@titan.rice.edu (Michael Wirth) (10/11/90)

What's the best (Adobe or other source) Type 1 PS font for source code
listings, specifically LISP code?

A "good looking" monospace font (an oxymoron?) would be best, but I could
give up monospace for better legibility in small point sizes.  Specific issues:

1.  Courier is too light weight.
2.  Other monospace fonts are also too light weight, especially in small point
sizes, and are similarly "ugly" (Look at the even gray tone of a page of most
reasonable fonts, and the "blotchy" uneven appearance of a page of Courier.)
3.  Standard proportional width fonts, e.g., Helvetica, have too much variation
in character widths.  Look at a string of semicolons, ";;;;;;;;;;;;;;;"
(a common comment delimiter in LISP).  It looks like a Volvo test crash.
So I don't need monospace, just "semi-monospace".

Mike Wirth
GeoQuest International, Inc.
Houston

glenn@huxley.huxley.bitstream.com (Glenn P. Parker) (10/11/90)

In article <1990Oct10.195501.26157@rice.edu>,
mcw@titan.rice.edu (Michael Wirth) writes:
> What's the best (Adobe or other source) Type 1 PS font for source code
> listings, specifically LISP code?

You might consider "Letter Gothic 12 Pitch", from Bitstream.  This is a
very clean, sans serif, monospace font that I have used for C++ listings.
There is also a monospaced Helvetica called "Monospace 821" from Bitstream,
but I don't care for it, personally.  If either of these is too light,
there are bold versions (and italic, and bold-italic :-).

Proclaimer: I work for Bitstream.
--
Glenn P. Parker       glenn@bitstream.com       Bitstream, Inc.
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