ProFont is a monospaced font created to be a most readable font for programming. Thus, it has slashed zeros; distinct forms of I, l and 1; and it is designed to look good a really small sizes so you can cram lots of lines of code into the window of your editor.
The original ProFont version was made for the classic Mac OS and
contained bitmapped shapes at 7, 9, 10, 12, 14, 18 and 24 points.
Using this sizes with anti-aliasing turned off, you get a clean and crisp programming font.
The TrueType versions for Windows contain outline shapes only so they might not look as great
as the bitmap version, but still are quite nice nonetheless.
Have a look at the screenshots provided here:
This is what ProFont looks like in my editor using the bitmapped version.
If chosen in the settings panel above, this page might be rendered using a ProFont
version, and most likely it’ll look quite different than in
the screenshots. (Note: On low-resolution mobile devices, the option to use
ProFont on this page isn’t available.)
In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people verry angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
To solve some of the problems people used to struggle with in consequence of this event,
they invented computers. But as it turned out, computers were amazingly stupid things which had
to be told every single step. So some wise men thought of a way to accomplish this, and they called
it programming.
Unfortunately programming requires you to look at whole bunch of code, and every misread character – e.g. to mistake an I for an l or a 1; or an O for a 0 – can have disastrous effects. But again, some clever guys stepped in. Their names were Andrew Welch, Carl Osterwald and Stephen C. Gilardi, and they designed ProFont, a font face with distinctive forms for those critical characters, even at small sizes.
At some point at the end of the 1990s, I installed ProFont on my Macintosh and I loved it: I like to view as many lines of code as possible in my editing window, so I need a small but legible font.
Almost two decades ago, I was Desperately Seeking ProFont for Windows because at that time, I had to work on a Windows computer at the office and was missing the ProFont experience that I had at home on my Mac. Some very nice people converted ProFont to both TrueType and .fon (the Windows bitmap font format) and send it to me, so I put up a website to distribute them.
Some time later, I received ProFont as X Windows pcf file for Linux; and when I switched to Mac OS X, I tinkered around a bit to make ProFont more compatible for this system.
After the license situation had been unclear for a few years, ProFont
is published using the MIT license (since 2014),
allowing you to copy and modify ProFont without limitation (see included LICENSE file for
more information).
Please don’t ask me for the permission to use ProFont in this way or another.
I’m NOT the creator of ProFont so the permission isn’t mine to give. Moreover, check the MIT License
and you’ll see that you’ve already got the permission.
There are various ProFont versions for various operating systems.
Please read the short descriptions to find out which version is right for you
– or download all versions for the OS that you’re working with.
None of the files provided here is bigger than 470 KBytes (most are a lot smaller)
so you don’t have to be afraid. ;-)
Please note that ProFont looks best using the bitmapped shapes and with anti-aliasing
turned off. Not all of the versions provided here contain those bitmapped
shapes, and not all of your applications will allow you to turn off the anti-aliasing.
On Mac OS X, you might try turning off anti-aliasing for small font sizes in
the System Preferences.
And then, not all applications show the bitmapped shapes even if they are available but rather
stick to the outlined shapes. When ProFont in small sizes is illegible in your app, it is
probably using the outlined shapes.
On my Mac, both TextWrangler
(a good free editor) and TextMate (a great payware editor)
work fine with ProFont, and I’ve successfully tested ProFont with
Sublime Text 2 (payware).
By the way, ProFont doesn't contain a bold or an italic style, there’s regular only. I don’t mind at all since I never liked bold or italic style in my code but if you feel you need this, check out the Windows section below, there are two bold versions.
(ALMOST) ALL PROFONT VERSIONS OFFERED HERE HAVE BEEN GENERATED ==YEARS== AGO.
PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THEY MAY NOT BE COMPATIBLE WITH CURRENT VERSIONS
OF WHATEVER OPERATING SYSTEM YOU ARE USING!
The exceptions are the OTB versions for Linux, which were added in Nov and Dec 2019.
ProFont Distribution 2.2
This is the original ProFont distribution. The contains various versions & some goodies,
it was build for the classic Mac OS but should work with OS X, too.
Download as:
DMG disk image /
ZIP-Archive /
7z-Archive
ProFont IIx
My own ProFont build for OS X: Just like the original, it contains bitmaps and
outlines. I’ve added the Euro sign €, the fi and fl ligatures are available but won’t be
inserted automatically.
ProFont IIx might run properly on Windows or Linux, but I didn’t test it thoroughly on these systems.
Download as:
DMG disk image /
ZIP-Archive /
7z-Archive
ProFont bitmap with €
This version contains bitmap fonts only, no outlines!
The Euro sign was added for all sizes except 7pt.
Download as:
ZIP-Archive /
7z-Archive
ProFont for OS X
Faisal N. Jawdat’s OS X port: He chose to remove the ligatures.
Please proceed to faisal.com/software/profontx/.
ProFont bitmap version
This version includes the ProFont bitmaps as .fon files.
No outlines. I’ve no idea if this font format is still supported
in current Windows version (so if anyone tries, please let me know).
I didn't test it myself but I recieved a message telling me that ProFont.fon works
fine with Windows 8.1. (Thanks, Ian!)
Download as:
ZIP-Archive /
7z-Archive
The following Windows ttf versions are standard TrueType files, so they
should run on Mac OS X and Linux. But they don't contain
any bitmaps shapes so they might look not as clean as the original,
especially on small sizes.
If you decide to use one of these versions, be sure to turn on ClearType
on Windows / Font Smoothing on OS X.
ProFont ttf »tweaked«
The ProFont outline version, TrueType. It contains various tweaks, such
as the Euro character, missing characters from the Latin 1 code page
and fixed metrics.
Build by someone who called himself »ardu«, I never got to know the
real name.
Download as:
ZIP-Archive /
7z-Archive
ProFont ttf (older version)
Another TrueType version, outlines only. The doesn’t contain the
tweaks mentioned above. Build by Mark Smith with fixes by Mark Anderson.
Download as:
ZIP-Archive /
7z-Archive
ProFont Bold ttf (two versions)
Since ProFont has no bold style, David O’Riva and Doug Bitting both made the effort
to build one. The two versions look quite similiar but not exactly
the same. I packed them into one archive so you can try both and see which one
you like better.
Download as:
ZIP-Archive /
7z-Archive
ProFont ttf, Polish
Piotr Padkowski build this version which contains polish characters.
Download as:
ZIP-Archive /
7z-Archive
Note: The Mac build ProFont IIx runs on Windows, too, but wasn’t properly tested there.
ProFont OpenType Bitmap (OTB)
== NEW November 2019 ==
A new bitmap version that works with a new Pango update
(see gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/pango/issues/386).
Build by Sander van Rossem.
Download as:
ZIP-Archive /
7z-Archive
ProFont OpenType Bitmap (OTB)
== NEW December 2019 ==
Another bitmap version that works with a new Pango update
(see gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/pango/issues/386).
Build by Riku Salminen. Apparently, the OTB version above has issues with several applications (e.g. Firefox and
Sublime Text 3) which are solved in this build.
Download as:
ZIP-Archive /
7z-Archive
ProFont pcf bitmap (new version)
This contains the bitmap versions, no outlines. I’ve been told it runs with
with XFT apps (whatever that may be).
Build by Gareth Redman.
Download as:
ZIP-Archive /
7z-Archive
ProFont pcf bitmap (old version)
This contains the bitmap versions, no outlines. Obviously, this version doesn’t run
properly with XFT apps (see above).
Build by Zhichao Hong.
Download as:
ZIP-Archive /
7z-Archive
Note: The Mac build ProFont IIx should run on Linux, too, but wasn’t tested there. Moreover, I guess that all of the Windows versions will work on Linux.
I don’t know if anyone is interested in a font for
Atari ST/TT/Falcon nowadays. But I’ve been working with Atari computers
for several years and I really loved them, so I’m keeping this font available
mostly for sentimental reasons.
ProFontJB was made by Jens Brüggemann and though he didn’t mention it,
I’m sure he was inspired by the original ProFont because most of the
characters do look the same.
This version contains a single bitmap .fnt GEM font file at 8pt (although it’s
the same size as ProFont 9pt).
Download as:
ZIP-Archive
The full documentation is included only in ProFont Distribution 2.2 (see above),
because it strongly refers to the contents of this version.
In case you’ve downloaded a different package, you can get the documentation here:
Download ProFont documentation, PDF file.
Back when I didn’t have a ProFont version for Windows,
I worked with a bitmap font made by Sheldon Simms.
Available at one size only, called 12pt though it’s about
the same size as ProFont 9pt.
I kinda liked it so I converted it for the classic Mac OS, as far as I
remember, this version does not properly work on OS X!
Windows .fon, download as:
ZIP-Archive /
7z-Archive
Mac OS bitmap font, download as:
ZIP-Archive /
StuffIt-Archive
For comments and questions, write to: