Dina Programming Font
Introduction
Dina is a monospace bitmap font, primarily aimed at programmers. It is relatively compact to allow a lot of code on screen, while (hopefully) clear enough to remain readable even at high resolutions.
I made this font after having tried all the free programming fonts I could find. Somehow there was some detail in each of them that meant I couldn’t work with them in the long run.
The closest to perfect I found was the Proggy font, which the author kindly allows you to modify. So I started building this font using Proggy as the base, and with inspiration from Tobi, Fixedsys and some old DOS fonts I used to love.
This version is the result of intense tweaking and testing, and I am quite happy with it now.
Font Format
Dina is a monospace bitmap font in Windows FON file format. It is available as:
* 8pt regular, bold, italic, bold italic
* 9pt regular, bold, italic, bold italic
* 10pt regular, bold, italic, bold italic
All styles are the same width for proper alignment.
Motivation
In designing a programming font the following guidelines were followed:
* Needs to be monospaced
* It has to be easy to see the difference between i, l, 1, I
* It has to be easy to see the difference between o, O, 0
* The symbols used in programming languages have to look ‘right’
* Braces should line up nicely
* Still has to be pleasant to read passages of text
Installation
Just copy the file ‘Dina.fon’ to your Windows font folder (C:\Windows\Fonts or similar), and it should show up in the font selection list of your favorite editor.
Depending on your monitor size and type, the 8pt or 9pt versions should be preferable up to at least 1280×1024 resolution. The 10pt version may be an option at higher resolutions.
License
The Dina font is free. You are welcome to use, distribute and modify it however you want, just don’t use it for anything illegal or claim that you made it.
The Dina font is provided ‘as-is’, without any express or implied warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this font.
