Monday, March 16, 2009

Add Fonts to Windows Command Line Console

By default, the command line console only has two fonts for Windows XP Simple Chinese version. They are Roster Font and Lucida Console. I am unhappy with them. I like Consolas and Bitstream Vera Sans Mono for command line. So I decided to add these fonts to the command line console. I have done it following Necessary criteria for fonts to be available in a command window. I have added two registry values as shown in the following registry file.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Console\TrueTypeFont]
"00"="Consolas"
"000"="Bitstream Vera Sans Mono"

The machine needs to be restarted after adding these stuff to registry. And I need to set the current code page to 437 in Option tab of the command line console shortcut if I want to select Consolas and Bitstream Vesa Sans Mono. The code page 936 does not work for these 2 fonts.