Consolas for Powerline

This is the patched version of the Consolas font for MS Windows. This font is compatible with vim-powerline and powerline.

I've manually patched the original font since it's practically impossible to use correctly the Powerline fontpatcher with it. I think this is due to a series of reasons (that I won't list here) that aren't directly correlated to the script itself.

Installation and usage

Install the vanilla Consolas font family

Fist of all you need the Consolas font family to be installed on your system. If you're running Windows Vista or later, you should find it already installed, otherwise here's how you can install it manually:

• download Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer for free from the Microsoft Download Center;
• extract the downloaded .exe installer (PowerPointViewer.exe);
• find the file ppviewer.cab somewhere inside the extracted folder and extract it too;
• install CONSOLA.ttf, CONSOLAB.ttf, CONSOLAI.ttf and CONSOLAZ.ttf contained within the unpacked ppviewer.cab.

NOTE: Consolas comes also bundled with the following packages and software:

• Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint File Formats;
• Microsoft Visual Studio (2005+, the Consolas font package is available for download from the Microsoft Download Center for the older versions);
• Microsof Office (2007+).

Use the patched font

To use this font, just download the file consola.ttf and install it, then put the following lines in your vimrc file:

" Setting the font to Consolas, 11 pt
if has("gui_running")
  if has("gui_gtk2")
    set guifont=Consolas\ 11
  else
    set guifont=Consolas:h11
  endif
endif

If you need fallback fonts, do the following:

if has('gui_win32')
  " On Vim 7.4.16 the following line still doesn't work with gui_gtk
  set guifont=Consolas:h11:cANSI,Inconsolata:h12,Courier New:h11
else " not win32
  let consolas=system('fc-list | grep -c Consolas')
  let inconsolata=system('fc-list | grep -c Inconsolata')
  if (consolas > 0)
    set guifont=Consolas\ 11
  elseif (inconsolata > 0)
    set guifont=Inconsolata\ 12
  else
    set guifont=DejaVu\ Sans\ Mono\ 10
    " or simply
    " set guifont=Monospace\ 10
  endif
endif

See :help guifont and :help setting-guifont in Vim.

Please note that to install this font you'll need to overwrite the original one! Do your backups, if you want, I'm not responsible for the loss of your previous version of Consolas! Anyway, in case you do lose it and want it back, follow the instructions above to reinstall it.

Why overwrite?

I made a version of this font with a different family name ("Powerline Consolas") which was giving me lot of headaches and was killing my free time. I couldn't end up with working alternative styles ( bold, italic and bold italic ) when re-generating them from the original ttf files. I decided, then, to take advantage of the existing Consolas family. Perhaps this solution is less elegant, but at least it works.

Further information and troubleshooting

Always refer to the vim-powerline or powerline documentation if something doesn't work as you expected and to understand how Powerline itself works.

You could also find helpful this article by Eugene Ching, which inspired me.

For more information about the Consolas font family, visit this page (copyright, trademarks and technical details) and this page (history).

Please, contact me if the font is being naughty with you.