Using alternate fonts in Visual Studio.NET


For no particular good reason, Visual Studio.NET 2002/2003 doesn't seem to pick up all the fonts you may have installed on your system. In particular, Bitstream Vera Sans Mono from Gnome is one of those. It's a very legible monospace font and perfect for coding. Problem is, by default it is not possible to set this as the default font in the VS editor. Here are a few simple steps to take to get this (or any other font of your chosing) to be displayed in VS.NET.

  1. Install the Gnome Bitstream fonts.
  2. Open VS.NET 2002 or 2003. Select Tools from the menu and click Options. From the option dialog select Environment folder on the left and then the Fonts and Colors from the submenu.
  3. Select Text Editor from the top dropdown listbox.
  4. Select "Bitstream Vera Sans Mono Bold" from the Font list.
  5. Click OK to verify the changes and then close Visual Studio.
  6. Open RegEdit.
  7. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER -> Software -> Microsoft -> VisualStudio -> 7.x (0 for 2002, 1 for 2003) -> FontAndColors -> {Big-Long-GUID}
  8. There should be a key for FontName. Double click that, and remove the " Bold" from the end. Click OK and close RegEdit.
  9. Restart VS.NET and rejoice at having a pleasant font to stare at.

Notes:
References
Created: Tue 17 Aug 2004, Chris Skaryd
Modified: Wed 27 Jul 2005, Chris Skaryd - Update link for Raize font.

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