238 lines
10 KiB
Markdown
238 lines
10 KiB
Markdown
## Fira Code: free monospaced font with programming ligatures
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### Problem
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Programmers use a lot of symbols, often encoded with several characters. For the human brain, sequences like `->`, `<=` or `:=` are single logical tokens, even if they take two or three characters on the screen. Your eye spends a non-zero amount of energy to scan, parse and join multiple characters into a single logical one. Ideally, all programming languages should be designed with full-fledged Unicode symbols for operators, but that’s not the case yet.
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### Solution
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Fira Code is a free monospaced font containing ligatures for common programming multi-character combinations. This is just a font rendering feature: underlying code remains ASCII-compatible. This helps to read and understand code faster. For some frequent sequences like `..` or `//`, ligatures allow us to correct spacing.
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### Download & Install
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<a href="https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/releases/download/6.2/Fira_Code_v6.2.zip"><img alt="Fira_Code_v6.2.zip - December 6, 2021 - 2.5 MB" src="./extras/download.png" width="520" height="130"></a>
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Then:
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- [How to Install](https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/wiki)
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- [Troubleshooting](https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/wiki#troubleshooting)
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- [News & Updates](https://twitter.com/FiraCode)
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### Support
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<a href="https://github.com/sponsors/tonsky" target="_blank"><img alt="Sponsor" src="./extras/sponsor.png"></a>
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Fira Code is a personal, free-time project with no funding and a huge [feature request backlog](https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/issues). If you love it, consider supporting its development via [GitHub Sponsors](https://github.com/sponsors/tonsky) or [Patreon](https://patreon.com/tonsky). Any help counts!
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### What’s in the box?
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Left: ligatures as rendered in Fira Code. Right: same character sequences without ligatures.
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<img src="./extras/ligatures.png" width="754" height="1326">
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Fira Code comes with a huge variety of arrows. Even better: you can make them as long as you like and combine start/middle/end fragments however you want!
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<img src="./extras/arrows.png" width="754" height="799">
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Fira Code is not only about ligatures. Some fine-tuning is done for punctuation and frequent letter pairs.
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<img src="./extras/typographics.png" width="754" height="649">
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Fira Code comes with a few different character variants, so that everyone can choose what’s best for them. [How to enable](https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/wiki/How-to-enable-stylistic-sets)
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<img src="./extras/character_variants.png" width="754" height="391">
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Some ligatures can be altered or enabled using stylistic sets/character variants:
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<img src="./extras/ligature_variants.png" width="754" height="561">
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Being a programming font, Fira Code has fantastic support for ASCII/box drawing, powerline and other forms of console UIs:
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<img src="./extras/console.png" width="754" height="459">
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Fira Code is the first programming font to offer dedicated glyphs to render progress bars:
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<img src="./extras/progress.png" width="754" height="282">
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In action:
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<img src="./extras/progress.gif" width="560" height="181">
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We hope more programming fonts will adopt this convention and ship their own versions.
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Unicode coverage makes Fira Code a great choice for mathematical writing:
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<img src="./extras/math.png" width="754" height="323">
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### How does it look?
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<img src="./extras/samples.png" width="754" height="1068">
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<img src="./extras/samples2.png" width="754" height="1257">
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### Editor compatibility list
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| Works | Doesn’t work |
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|-------|----------------|
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| **Abricotine** | **Arduino IDE** |
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| **Android Studio** (2.3+, [instructions](https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/wiki/Intellij-products-instructions)) | **Adobe Dreamweaver** |
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| **Anjuta** (unless at the EOF) | **Delphi IDE** |
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| **AppCode** (2016.2+, [instructions](https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/wiki/Intellij-products-instructions)) | Standalone **Emacs** ([workaround](https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/wiki/Emacs-instructions)) |
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| **Atom** 1.1 or newer ([instructions](https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/wiki/Atom-instructions)) | **Godot** ([issue](https://github.com/godotengine/godot/issues/9961)) |
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| **BBEdit/TextWrangler** (v. 11 only, [instructions](https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/wiki/BBEdit-instructions)) | **IDLE** |
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| **Brackets** (with [this plugin](https://github.com/polo2ro/firacode-in-brackets)) | **KDevelop 4** |
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| **Chocolat** | **Monkey Studio IDE** |
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| **CLion** (2016.2+, [instructions](https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/wiki/Intellij-products-instructions)) | **UltraEdit** |
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| **Cloud9** ([instructions](https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/wiki/Cloud9-Instructions)) |
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| **Coda 2** |
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| **CodeLite** |
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| **CodeRunner** |
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| **CotEditor** |
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| **Eclipse** |
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| **elementary Code** |
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| **Geany** (1.37+) |
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| **gEdit / Pluma** |
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| **GNOME Builder** |
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| **GoormIDE** ([instructions](https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/wiki/GoormIDE-Instructions)) |
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| **gVim** ([Windows](https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/issues/462), [GTK](https://vimhelp.org/options.txt.html#%27guiligatures%27)) |
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| **IntelliJ IDEA** (2016.2+, [instructions](https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/wiki/Intellij-products-instructions)) |
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| **Kate, KWrite** |
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| **KDevelop 5+** |
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| **Komodo** |
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| **Leafpad** |
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| **LibreOffice** |
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| **LightTable** ([instructions](https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/wiki/LightTable-instructions)) |
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| **LINQPad** |
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| **MacVim** 7.4 or newer ([instructions](https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/wiki/MacVim-instructions)) |
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| **Mancy** |
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| **MATLAB** ([instructions](https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/wiki/MATLAB-for-Windows-Instructions)) |
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| **Meld** |
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| **Mousepad** |
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| **NeoVim-gtk** |
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| **NetBeans** |
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| **Notepad** (Windows) |
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| **Notepad++** (with a [workaround](https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/issues/2287#issuecomment-256638098)) |
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| **Notepad3** ([instructions](https://github.com/rizonesoft/Notepad3/issues/361#issuecomment-365977420))|
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| **Nova** |
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| **PhpStorm** (2016.2+, [instructions](https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/wiki/Intellij-products-instructions)) |
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| **PyCharm** (2016.2+, [instructions](https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/wiki/Intellij-products-instructions)) |
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| **QOwnNotes** (21.16.6+) |
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| **QtCreator** |
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| **Rider** |
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| **RStudio** ([instructions](https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/wiki/RStudio-instructions)) |
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| **RubyMine** (2016.2+, [instructions](https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/wiki/Intellij-products-instructions)) |
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| **Scratch** |
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| **Scribus** (1.5.3+) |
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| **SublimeText** (3146+) |
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| **Spyder IDE** (only with Qt5) |
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| **SuperCollider 3** |
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| **TextAdept** (Linux, macOS) |
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| **TextEdit** |
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| **TextMate 2** |
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| **VimR** ([instructions](https://github.com/qvacua/vimr/wiki#ligatures)) |
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| **Visual Studio** (2015+, [instructions](https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/wiki/Visual-Studio-Instructions)) |
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| **Visual Studio Code** ([instructions](https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/wiki/VS-Code-Instructions)) |
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| **WebStorm** (2016.2+, [instructions](https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/wiki/Intellij-products-instructions)) |
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| **Xamarin Studio/Monodevelop** |
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| **Xcode** (8.0+, otherwise [with plugin](https://github.com/robertvojta/LigatureXcodePlugin)) |
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| **Xi** |
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| Probably work: **Smultron, Vico** | Under question: **Code::Blocks IDE** |
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### Terminal compatibility list
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| Platform | Works | Doesn’t work |
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|----------------|-------|--------------|
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| macOS | Hyper (see [#3607](https://github.com/vercel/hyper/issues/3607))<br>iTerm 2<br>Kitty<br>Terminal.app<br>ZOC | Alacritty |
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| Windows | Hyper (see [#3607](https://github.com/vercel/hyper/issues/3607))<br>Mintty<br>Token2Shell<br>Windows Terminal | Alacritty<br>Cmder<br>ConEmu<br>PuTTY<br>Windows Console<br>ZOC |
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| Linux | Hyper (see [#3607](https://github.com/vercel/hyper/issues/3607))<br>Kitty<br>Konsole<br>QTerminal<br>Termux<br>st ([patch](https://st.suckless.org/patches/ligatures/)) | Alacritty<br>GNOME Terminal<br>libvte-based terminals ([bug report](https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=584160)): <ul><li>gtkterm<li>guake<li>LXTerminal<li> sakura<li>Terminator<li>xfce4-terminal</ul>mate-terminal<br>rxvt<br>terminology<br>xterm
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| ChromeOS | crosh ([instructions](https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/wiki/ChromeOS-Terminal)) | |
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### Browser support
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```html
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<!-- HTML -->
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<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/firacode@6.2.0/distr/fira_code.css">
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```
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```css
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/* CSS */
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@import url(https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/firacode@6.2.0/distr/fira_code.css);
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```
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```css
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/* Specify in CSS */
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code { font-family: 'Fira Code', monospace; }
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@supports (font-variation-settings: normal) {
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code { font-family: 'Fira Code VF', monospace; }
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}
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```
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- IE 10+, Edge Legacy: enable with `font-feature-settings: "calt";`
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- Firefox
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- Safari
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- Chromium-based browsers (Chrome, Opera)
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- ACE
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- CodeMirror (enable with `font-variant-ligatures: contextual;`)
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### Projects using Fira Code
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- [CodePen](https://codepen.io/)
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- [Blink Shell](http://www.blink.sh/)
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- [Klipse](http://app.klipse.tech/)
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- [IlyaBirman.net](http://ilyabirman.net/)
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- [EvilMartians.com](https://evilmartians.com/)
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- [Web Maker](https://webmakerapp.com/)
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- [FromScratch](https://fromscratch.rocks/)
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- [PEP20.org](https://pep20.org/)
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### Alternatives
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Free monospaced fonts with ligatures:
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- [Hasklig](https://github.com/i-tu/Hasklig)
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- [Monoid](http://larsenwork.com/monoid/)
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- [Fixedsys Excelsior](https://github.com/kika/fixedsys)
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- [Iosevka](https://be5invis.github.io/Iosevka/)
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- [DejaVu Sans Code](https://github.com/SSNikolaevich/DejaVuSansCode)
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- [Victor Mono](https://rubjo.github.io/victor-mono/)
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- [Cascadia Code](https://github.com/microsoft/cascadia-code)
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- [JetBrains Mono](https://github.com/JetBrains/JetBrainsMono)
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Paid monospaced fonts with ligatures:
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- [PragmataPro](http://www.fsd.it/fonts/pragmatapro.htm)
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- [Mono Lisa](https://www.monolisa.dev/)
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### Building Fira Code locally
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In case you want to alter FiraCode.glyphs and build OTF/TTF/WOFF files yourself, this is the setup I use on macOS:
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```bash
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# install all required build tools
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./script/bootstrap_macos.sh
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# build the font files
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./script/build.sh
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# install OTFs to ~/Library/Fonts
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cp distr/otf/*.otf ~/Library/Fonts
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```
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Alternatively, you can build Fira Code using Docker:
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```bash
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# install dependencies in a container and build the font files
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make
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# package the font files from dist/ into a zip
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make package
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```
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### Credits
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- Author: Nikita Prokopov [@nikitonsky](https://twitter.com/nikitonsky)
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- Based on: [Fira Mono](https://github.com/mozilla/Fira)
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- Inspired by: [Hasklig](https://github.com/i-tu/Hasklig)
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