Consolas is a monospaced typeface designed by Luc(as) de Groot. It is a part of the

ClearType Font Collection ClearType is Microsoft's implementation of subpixel rendering technology in rendering text in a font system. ClearType attempts to improve the appearance of text on certain types of computer display screens by sacrificing color fidelity for additi ...

, a suite of fonts that take advantage of Microsoft's ClearType font rendering technology. It has been included with Windows since Windows Vista, Microsoft Office 2007 and

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) from Microsoft. It is used to develop computer programs including websites, web apps, web services and mobile apps. Visual Studio uses Microsoft software development platforms such a ...

, and is available for download from Microsoft. It is the only standard Windows Vista font with a slash through the zero character. It is the default font for Microsoft Notepad as of Windows 8.

Characteristics

Consolas supports the following OpenType layout features: stylistic alternates, localized forms, uppercase-sensitive forms, oldstyle figures, lining figures, arbitrary fractions,

superscript A subscript or superscript is a character (such as a number or letter) that is set slightly below or above the normal line of type, respectively. It is usually smaller than the rest of the text. Subscripts appear at or below the baseline, whil ...

subscript A subscript or superscript is a character (such as a number or letter) that is set slightly below or above the normal line of type, respectively. It is usually smaller than the rest of the text. Subscripts appear at or below the baseline, whil ...

. Although Consolas is designed as a replacement for Courier New, only 713

glyph A glyph () is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A g ...

s were initially available, as compared to Courier New (2.90)'s 1318 glyphs. In version 5.22 (included with Windows 7), support for Greek Extended, Combining Diacritical Marks For Symbols, Number Forms, Arrows, Box Drawing, and Geometric Shapes was added. In version 5.32 the total number of supported glyphs was 2735. In version 7.00 (as part of Windows 10 1909) there are 3030 glyphs in total.

Availability

This font, along with

Calibri Calibri () is a digital sans-serif typeface family in the humanist or modern style. It was designed by Luc(as) de Groot in 2002–2004 and released to the general public in 2007, with Microsoft Office 2007 and Windows Vista. In Office 2007, it ...

, Cambria,

Candara Candara is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Gary Munch and commissioned by Microsoft. It is part of the ClearType Font Collection, a suite of fonts from various designers released with Windows Vista, all starting with the letter ''C'' ...

Corbel In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the s ...

and Constantia, is also distributed with Microsoft

Excel Viewer Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet developed by Microsoft for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. It features calculation or computation capabilities, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Appli ...

Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation program, created by Robert Gaskins and Dennis Austin at a software company named Forethought, Inc. It was released on April 20, 1987, initially for Macintosh computers only. Microsoft acquired PowerPoi ...

, the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Microsoft Windows and the Open XML File Format Converter for Mac. Consolas is also available for licensing from

Ascender Corporation Ascender Corporation was a digital typeface foundry and software development company located in the Chicago suburb of Elk Grove Village, Illinois in the United States. It was founded in 2004 by a team of software developers, typographers, and font ...

. Bare Bones Software has licensed the font from Ascender for use in their text editor BBEdit.

Alternatives

* Inconsolata, an open source font inspired by Consolas, is available on Google Fonts.

References

External links

Microsoft Typography page
* {{Microsoft Windows Typefaces Monospaced typefaces Windows Vista typefaces Typefaces and fonts introduced in 2006 Typefaces designed by Luc(as) de Groot ClearType Font Collection IPA typefaces

Characteristics

Availability

Alternatives

See also

References

External links