Selecting and trying out different fonts in Emacs.

fonts.el

;;; TL;DR
(set-face-attribute 'default nil :family "Hack");Must be the FULL name (search-fonts "Hack") for it.
(set-face-attribute 'default nil :height (* 13 10));13pt
;;; Also see: https://github.com/alphapapa/unpackaged.el#font-compare
;;; to easily compare lots of fonts.
;;; The purpose of this Gist is to help you select a font you like by trying it out in Emacs.

;;; Here is my custom Hack font: https://github.com/equwal/alt-hack0
;;; If you don't have the fonts, you can try:
;;; - Your package manager
;;; - nerd fonts https://github.com/ryanoasis/nerd-fonts/releases/
;;; - note that "installing" a font often just means putting fonts files in
;;;   the right place on the disk. For Gentoo ~/.local/share/fonts

;;; How to select a (programming) font:
;;; - "Hints" on the characters: 1 is not l, 0 is not O, etc.
;;; - Monospaced fonts only!
;;; - Modern enough to be used at large sizes without anti-aliasing. (try 14pt).
;;; - No weird oddities like angled quotes or weird 0 indicators. "
;;; - Good punctuation choices: !@#$%^&*[]();:'"/?.,<>`+_-
;;; - here is my custom Hack font: https://github.com/equwal/alt-hack0


;;; To use this comment block, try each font by evaluating the
;;; experssion with C-x C-e, then look at the specimen. Also try executing
;;; search-fonts to see if you installed it correctly at all.
;;; SPECIMEN:
;;; 10Oo$.,'"`()[]/{}@%&
;;; When decided, make a set-face-attribute like the at the top of the page.
(comment
 (search-fonts "Hack") ;Look at your *Messages*
 (set-if-found 13 "Hack"))
;;; To have a list of fonts where the first one is chosen that is found:
(comment
 ;; These are specially designed for programming.
 (set-if-found 14 "Inconsolata")           ;Good.
 (set-if-found 14 "InconsolataGo")         ;Straight quotes. "
 (set-if-found 13 "Hack NF") ; Nerd Fonts is a good source.
 (set-if-found 13 "Hack Nerd Font Mono") ; Curvy ells and programmer hints.
 ;; These two have ligatures, which I don't know if I like. Seems distracting.
 ;; Also, it is a pain to setup ligatures in Emacs.
 (set-if-found 14 "Iosevka")
 (set-if-found 14 "Fura")
 (set-if-found 14 "FuraCode") ;; Ligatures (break emacs with it).
 (set-if-found 14 "FuraMono Nerd Font Mono") ;; Ligature free.
  ;; All these borrow from the vanilla DejaVu to an extent.
 (set-if-found 14 "DejaVu Nerd Font Mono")                ;Good.

 ;; Ligatures for programming things are nice to look at, but I think it incurs a
 ;; mental overhead penalty when they confuse things. Also, emacs does not
 ;; support them well.
 ;; ONLY use monospaced fonts for programming!
 (set-if-found 'dont "Serif")                 ;Bad.
 (set-if-found 'no "ComicSans"))           ;No.
;;; other font suggestions:
;;; http://hivelogic.com/articles/top-10-programming-fonts/ Inconsolata is nice,
;;; but angled quotes are no-go. The author wrote an "experimental" InconsolataGo
;;; font, with straight quotes:
;;; https://www.levien.com/type/myfonts/inconsolata.html
;;; and it is contained on


(defmacro comment (&rest no-eval) nil)
(defun set-font (font &optional points)
  (when (member font (font-family-list))
    (set-face-attribute 'default nil :family font)
    (set-face-attribute 'default nil :height (* points  10))
    t))
(defun pprintfonts (fonts)
  (dolist (f fonts)
    (message "%s" f))
  fonts)
(defun search-fonts (font)
  (interactive "sFonty Name: ")
  (pprintfonts
   (remove-if #'null
              (cl-loop for f in (font-family-list)
                       collect (when (search font f)
                                 f)))))
(defun set-if-found (points font)
  "Set the font. Use a C-u prefix arg for the point size."
  (interactive "P\\nsFonty Name: ")
  (let ((font-matches (search-fonts font)))
    (and font-matches
         (set-font (car font-matches) points)
         font-matches)))

;;; Special thanks to <dale> and <wasamasa> for their feedback on the Freenode #emacs channel.