How to Change Default Font in Windows Terminal

To further customize the look and feel of Windows Terminal, you can change the default font face. Here is how you can do it.

After a long, Microsoft finally took the plunge and decided to make a brand-new terminal application for Windows 10. The good thing is, rather than reinventing the wheel, Microsoft chose to improve the overall user experience and performance. As such, the new Windows Terminal acts as a hub for all your console needs and lets you add almost any shell installed in Windows 10.

In addition to all this, Windows Terminal has extensive customization options to give it a make-over to suit your taste. For example, with just a few clicks, you can change the Windows Terminal background, color schemes, cursor types, acrylic effects, text rendering, anti-aliasing, etc. In the same manner, you can also change the default font in Windows Terminal. Changing the default font face is very helpful if you don’t like the existing font face or use your favorite font.

This brief and straightforward article lets me show you how to change the default font face in the Windows Terminal application in Windows 10.

Note: Before changing the font, make sure the font you want to use is already installed. If it is not, install it and proceed with the below steps. Google Fonts is an excellent place to start if you are looking for new fonts.

Change default font face in Windows Terminal

The Windows Terminal lets you change the default font face directly from its Settings page. Specifically, you can change the font of each shell individually. Here is how.

Open the Windows Terminal app.
Click on the dropdown icon on the title bar.
Select “Settings” from the menu.
Select the shell of your choice on the sidebar.
Go to the “Appearance” tab.
Type the full font name in the “Font Face” field.
Click the “Save” button.
Close and reopen Windows Terminal.
With that, you’ve changed the default font face in Windows Terminal.

First, open the Start menu, search and open the “Windows Terminal.” After opening the app, click on the down arrow icon on the title bar and select the “Settings” option.

The above action will open the Settings tab in Windows Terminal. On the Settings page, select the shell of your choice. For example, I want to change the default font for Windows PowerShell. So, I picked it on the sidebar.

Now, go to the “Appearance” tab in the right panel. Here, type the full font name in the “Font face” field and hit the “Save” button.

Tip: You can get the font face name from the Font directory. Open the Start menu, search for “Font Settings,” find the font of your choice, and type the name as you see it.

After that, restart Windows Terminal to apply the changes. Once restarted, you will see the new font face.

Change global default font in Windows Terminal

Suppose you want to change the global font face. i.e., the default font for all shells, you can do that via the Windows Terminal’s settings.json file. Here is how.

Open the Windows Terminal app, click on the dropdown menu, and then click on the “Settings” option.

In the Settings tab, click on the “Open JSON file” option on the sidebar.

Here, find the “default” value, set the text cursor between the curly brackets, and press “Enter.”

Now, type fontFace: "<Full Font Name>". Replace <Full Font Name> with the actual font name. For example, if the font name is “Roboto,” the line you need to add will look like this fontFace: "Roboto". The font name must be between quotes.