What font does CMD.exe use by default for output in Windows XP?

None of them. It uses bitmap fonts. You can find then in the various .fon files in the Fonts folder. However, the Font Viewer won't make viewing them very nice for you. Basically each file consists of a different code page or font size.

I'd strongly advise to use a TrueType font, such as Lucida Console or Consolas, though. When set to Raster fonts the Windows console is incapable of handling Unicode.

Joey

Posted 2010-02-03T01:07:34.503

Reputation: 36 381

The basic raster font that the command prompt uses, is vgaXXXX.fon - where XXXX is the code page being used. Both the vga7XXX & vga8XXX use the same font, with only small changes in which characters are present.

If you're looking for the "pure" DOS code page, that's somewhat aptly named as "vgaoem.fon" – Digital_Utopia – 2015-05-18T09:41:38.750

Say I want to use VGAOEM.FON in my text editor. How would I go about that?? I tried opening the font and pressed install, restarted the text editor, but when I try to select font, I don't find anything new in the Terminal font! I want to use the 8x12 cp437 font like the one available in cmd but it's not listed: http://i.imgur.com/0uRZNBL.png

– Mark Jeronimus – 2015-08-12T10:31:36.883

2Do you know which font is used? I see no Terminal.fon there :( – Camilo Martin – 2012-01-19T23:26:20.140

Camilo: Since when do file names coincide with font names? There are quite a few .fon files in the Fonts folder. Some of them are Fixedsys, some of them are System, some of them are Terminal. 85775.fon is Terminal, for example, but there are multiple files for multiple code pages and sizes. – Joey – 2012-01-20T05:58:30.600

Weird, because I don't have a 85775.fon file. But I understand that the filenames are different from the family names. – Camilo Martin – 2012-01-20T09:07:35.420

What font does CMD.exe use by default for output in Windows XP?

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