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up vote 2 down vote favorite

NetBeans has a word wrap feature now - but if the font changes width when bold then it gets all jumpy and sometimes hard to work with.

Edit: It turns out that even with Courier New that NetBeans word wrap still jumps up and down lines at a time at random. I guess that this question no longer cares for an answer. However,, it seems that there is no answer. (at least nobody has brought one up yet)

I am currently using Comic Sans MS which gets wider when bold.

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23  
I admire your ability to read Comic Sans MS all day long. – zneak Feb 12 '11 at 19:27
I used to use Arial. Comic Sans is more relaxing to me. Before that it was Courier New all the way,, but gradually I got tired of all the wasted space. @zneak – George Bailey Feb 12 '11 at 21:11
@zneak: Another note which just now struck me as relevant was that I have a large font size when I use Comic Sans. -- on a 1920px wide screen monitor. -- and a laptop screen as my secondary monitor (when I am not working outside where the light is too bright). – George Bailey Feb 16 '11 at 20:19
2  
Comic Sans is “relaxing”? It makes me want to punch someone... Seriously, try Maiandra GD for something relaxing :) – Timwi Feb 18 '11 at 14:04
2  
@Jay: Well, personally, I don’t see why anyone still uses fixed-width fonts as if we were still in the 1980s, but to everyone their preference. – Timwi Feb 20 '11 at 0:00
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closed as off topic by Jim G., Thomas Owens♦ Oct 7 '12 at 1:06

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3 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

First things first: I'm sorry for not seeing your question earlier, because you've obviously surrendered... But I do have good news for you.

Such font exists!

Yes there are some fonts that don't change glyph width when changing weight. Let me find one for you... I think Jos Buivenga's done one.

Found it. It was in deed done by Jos. It's called Delicious.

http://www.exljbris.com/delicious.html

P.S. And it's free as in beer...
you have to agree to the terms of the license agreement though

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up vote 1 down vote

I use 'Bitstream Vera Sans Mono' and get the same widths for regular and bold characters.

Setup: Ubuntu 12.04, Oracle-JDK 1.7, Netbeans 7.2

German article explaining the setup.

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But that's a monospaced font. – fish Oct 8 '12 at 12:23
up vote -1 down vote

My answer does not address the part about VARIABLE width. In asnwer to that - I know of none. Its pretty normal in a variable width font to allow the font designer the freedom to resize things.

If you wanted a monospaced font (eg for editing code)...

I used to use Courier New, but it does not scale down very well.

Then I discovered Bitstream Vera Sans. I use it for everything now. Its very nice, it scales sizes well, and changing bold, italic, etc, does not change the size of the cell in which the character is placed. You can find this if you google it.

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3  
Consolas is a nice alternative to Courier New. – CaffGeek Feb 18 '11 at 14:24
Yup, I use Consolas as well. – Ed S. Feb 25 '11 at 5:18
Just note that Consolas require ClearType (its hinting is specifically designed for ClearType) to look nice. If the user uses some other anti-aliasing Consolas looks bitly. And Consolas was designed to replace Courier New. I use consolas as well. Ity's easy on the eye. – Ken - Abdias Software Oct 6 '12 at 19:10

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