Ubuntu – How to change the font or the font size in the TTY (console)

fontstty

I am using Ubuntu 12.04. Recently, the font size for all of my TTYs became much larger.
How can I change the font size back to the default?

Best Answer

To adjust the font/font-size used for the TTY, run sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-setup, which will guide you through the steps to choose a font and font-size:

Choose the default UTF-8, and press Tab to go highlight OK and then press Enter to go to the next step. (You can press it again and highlight Cancel to go back.)
Choose the default Combined - Latin, ... option ("Latin" includes the English alphabet) and proceed to step 3:
Select the font - be sure to read the notes above on the visual effect different fonts can have:
Select the font size:
Now you will exit console-setup; as the displayed message says, the new settings will be effective after reboot. To apply immediately, open a TTY and run setupcon.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to change font size and/or screen resolution in Virtual Terminals TTYs 1-6…

You can force your TTYs to run in different resolutions and font sizes by adding vga=xxx to your boot line. xxx should be replaced by any of these values:

Colours   640x400 640x480 800x600 1024x768 1280x1024 1600x1200
--------+-----------------------------------------------------
 4 bits |                  0x302      
 8 bits |  0x300   0x301   0x303    0x305    0x307     0x31C
15 bits |          0x310   0x313    0x316    0x319     0x31D
16 bits |          0x311   0x314    0x317    0x31A     0x31E
24 bits |          0x312   0x315    0x318    0x31B     0x31F
32 bits |

_{Some of these do not work on some hardware. When it fails you will be presented with a list of alternatives.}

edit: hwinfo can show you scancodes you can use with the following command:

sudo hwinfo --framebuffer | grep Mode

Resolution = columns, lines:

640 x 400 = 80 x 25
640 x 480 = 80 x 30
800 x 600 = 100 x 37
1024 x 768 = 128 x 48
1280 x 1024 = 160 x 64
1600 x 1200 = 200 x 75

To make it permanent you can add the vga=xxx to your bootloader options. The file you need in 11.04 is /etc/default/grub and you need to run sudo update-grub after any changes (from: How to remove GRUB selection? ).

Ubuntu – How to change the size of the Dash font

Unfortunately, the current answer is: you cannot (unless you figure out and modify the source code).

In this answer, I list the ways which do not work, to save future reader-modders the time and trouble of trying and failing.

A. Existing bug report

Bug #756845 ("Unity dash search unable to change font/icon size") refers to this exact problem, as shown by part of the screenshot for the bug report:
The bug has been confirmed and labeled "low importance", with no comments by developers or anyone else on a workaround or when it will be resolved.

B. Changing fonts or the scaling factor in `gnome-tweak-tool`

This does not work either:
Changing the scaling factor appears to change everything BUT the dash/hud font size (that's a 1920x1080 screenshot below -- compare the terminal font size!):

C. Editing `dash-widgets.json` in the Unity Theme folder

You can find a file called dash-widgets.json in /usr/share/unity/5/ and /usr/share/unity/themes. This contains a bunch of CSS-like settings that may give you hope, such as:
```
  "preview-heading-small"  : {
"main-title-size"    : 23.0,
```
but changing them does not work. (the Dash font is approximately size 22)

D. Changing the Launcher Icon size Doesn't Affect It

Since the dash text field is almost exactly the height of the Ubuntu launcher icon, you might think decreasing the icon size would change the height of the text field and make its font smaller.
- Changing the icon size is easy from the Unity Plugin in CompizConfig Settings Manager (ccsm), or from its MyUnity frontend:
- But decreasing to the minimum, 32, doesn't change the dash font size!