Alternate MS Sans Serif bitmap font for Windows

In text-mode PC operating systems that use the default font, it's easy to tell the difference between different control characters. Control-A is a dark happy face, Control-B is a light happy face, etc. In Windows, however, it's not so easy. MS Sans Serif (the default screen bitmap font) does not even include glyphs for control characters. Instead, an ugly indistinquishable box is used. My sserife.fon file fixes this problem.

To install it:

  1. Download sserife.fon
  2. Go to your Fonts folder
  3. Delete "MS Sans Serif 8,10,12,14,18,24" (sserife.fon)
  4. File | Install New Font, then install the font

Alternate sserife.fon has been tested with Windows Me, 98, and XP. To see if it's working on your system:

  1. Open ctrltest.txt in Wordpad, and set the font face to MS Sans Serif, size 10. Control characters should display in place of black boxes.

Before and after:

before after

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Modified Sun Mar 25 08:48:47 2007 generated Sun Mar 25 08:56:33 2007
http://jeff.tk/sserife/