Aquamacs Default Fonts

Aquamacs Emacs is a version of Emacs for Mac OS X. I happen to think it is the best Emacs for that platform.

One thing that has befuddled me is the font handling. The default Aquamacs font is a proportional font. The problem is that this is really annoying for text editing because columns don’t line up. Also, if different modes are set to use different fonts then you see an annoying screen pause for redraw when you flip between buffers. Thus I think the best plan is to use one single font for all modes.

It is not obvious how to accomplish this. Some people wrote about it on the Aquamacs mailing list; this is my attempt to make sense of those directions.

1. I assume you already have Aquamacs running of course.
2. Bring up the font dialog with Apple-t and select the font you want to use as a default. I suggest you use one from the Fixed Width family.
3. Select the menu item Options->Frame Appearance Styles->Use Current Style as Default.
4. Select the menu item Options->Save Options to save your selection permanently.

That worked for me on Aquamacs 0.9.9d. YMMV.

–phil