Enable More Fonts for Windows Command Prompt

Windows itself has more and more powerful features available and can be customized in many ways to suite your preference, command prompt still stays the same with very limited changes and customization. For instance, font selection is only limited to two choices, Lucida Console and Raster Fonts. Furthermore, there is no function available to add different fonts through the interface. Well, you probably don’t know actually you can add more fonts to command prompt by using a simple registry
hack.

Before adding more fonts to command prompts, there are few criteria that must be fulfilled:

• The font must be a fixed-pitch font.
• The font can’t be an italic font or have a negative A or C space.
• The font must be FF_MODERN for TrueType fonts.
• The font must be OEM_CHARSET for non TrueType font.

To add more fonts to command prompt, follow below steps:

1. Go to Start -> Run, then type regedit and press enter.
   
   http://gallery.techarena.in/data/519/regedit.png
   
2. Locate to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Console\TrueTypeFont
   
3. On the right panel, you will notice Lucida Console has been added by default and under name column it is named as 0, so for additional fonts you are going to add in, you must named it as 00, 000, 0000 and so on. You must follow this naming convention; else the added new fonts will not appear.
   
4. Right click TrueTypeFont, choose New -> String Value, enter the name as 00 then press enter key.
   
   http://gallery.techarena.in/data/519/addstringvalue.png
   
5. Double click on this newly created String Value at step iv), then enter the font name under Value data field. Since the fonts that fulfill the criteria are Consolas, Courier New as mentioned above, so I add Consolas under name 00.
   
6. Repeat step iv) and v) to add Courier New under name 000.
   
   http://gallery.techarena.in/data/519...ts-468x138.png
   
7. Reboot your PC as the new added fonts will only appear after the PC is rebooted.

Once your PC is rebooted, launch the command prompt, then right click on the title bar and choose properties. Under Font tab, you should be able to see the fonts that you have just added. Select any one of them, then click OK to save the setting.

http://gallery.techarena.in/data/519/cmd1.png