Using a proportional font for markdown
Two weeks ago, I switched to using a proportional font for editing markdown text. I’ve been using vscode’s inbuilt markdown previewer a lot. Continually staring at it’s proportionally spaced output probably triggered a flash of inspiration.
I figured markdown in a more readable font would be a nicer experience. And since I’ve started blogging, I’ve been writing a lot of prose in markdown so it makes sense to give it a try.
It took me a day or two to get used to it. But now, I like it, and I’m staying with it. Occasionally, the proportional spacing gets in the way, but overall, it’s been a great net positive. I encourage everyone to try it.
Fortunately for me, it’s easy to do this in vscode so it affects markdown files only. You want something like this in your settings.json file:
"[markdown]": {
"editor.fontFamily": "-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe WPC', 'Segoe UI', system-ui, 'Ubuntu', 'Droid Sans', sans-serif",
},
where fontFamily is a list of fonts. I just copied the fontFamily value from the inbuilt markdown previewer.
Note that I use a proportional font for markdown only. I think this is a clear proposition.
I’m still using monospace for other stuff. I think proportional fonts for coding is not so clear cut. If you are interested in it, here’s some discussions from the past: