How do I get GNU Unifont or Free Mono working on gvim windows?

You made me curious about why this wasn't working, so I installed fontforge to snoop around inside the font. It turns out you were right about the font itself having the issue: The PANOSE proportion code is "Even Width" (4), not "Monospaced" (9). Since vim filters out non-monospaced fonts, this explains why they don't show up in the dialog.

In case you're interested, I got Windows fontforge via a standalone cygwin/X build prepared by this Japanese fellow, via this page with a discussion in English. Once you have it installed, open the font and look in Element->Font Info->OS/2->Panose.

I tried changing the setting and saving the file, but 1) the saved font file was 10 times larger than the original and it took a couple minutes to save the file, so something probably went wrong, and then 2) Windows refused to load it, complaining it isn't a valid font file. I've reached the end of my curiosity, but maybe you can make it work.

For Win32, GTK, Motif, Mac OS and Photon:

:set guifont=* 

will bring up a font requester, where you can pick the font you want.

Type :set guifont? to get the setting, and put it into your .vimrc. When you put it into the .vimrc file, you will have to escape spaces if there are spaces. For example, if ':set guifont?' outputs 'Gnu Unifont 10', it needs to set in .vimrc as:

set guifont=Gnu\ Unifont\ 10

I recently had the same problem and fixed it with fontforge. Here is the workflow to generate a working unifontmono.ttf font:

• start fontforge and open the unifont.ttf font. On Debian this is installed at

/usr/share/fonts/truetype/unifont/unifont.ttf

• go to Element -> Font Info...
  • under PS Names change Fontname, Family Name and Name for Humans, for example into UnifontMono.
  • under OS/2 -> Panose change Proportion to Monospaced.
• click Save. In the popup select Change.
• File -> Generate Fonts.... Select TrueType in the left requester, select No Bitmap Fonts, disable Validate Before Saving.
• Save

This should save a TTF file that you can install under Windows.

To use the font with gvim on Windows:

1. install the font by double-clicking it and choose Install.

2. start gvim as Administrator:

   • goto Edit -> Startup Settings.
   • add the following line:

set guifont=UnifontMono:h12:cANSI

3. restart gvim, it should now use the converted font.