How to increase the font size in xterm

Question

As usual the default font is very small. How can I make the default font lager?

Answer 1

The fontMenu pops up when when the “control” key and pointer button three are pressed in a window.

It sets the font used in the VT102 window, or modifies the way the font is specified or displayed. There are several sections.

The first section allows you to select the font from a set of alternatives:

Default (fontdefault)

Set the font to the default, i.e., that given by the *VT100.font resource.

Unreadable (font1)

Set the font to that given by the *VT100.font1 resource.

Tiny (font2)

Set the font to that given by the *VT100.font2 resource.

Small (font3)

Set the font to that given by the *VT100.font3 resource.

Medium (font4)

Set the font to that given by the *VT100.font4 resource.

Large (font5)

Set the font to that given by the *VT100.font5 resource.

Huge (font6)

Set the font to that given by the *VT100.font6 resource.

Escape Sequence

This allows you to set the font last specified by the Set Font escape sequence (see the document Xterm Control Sequences).

Selection (fontsel)

This allows you to set the font specified the current selection as a font name (if the PRIMARY selection is owned).

The second section allows you to modify the way it is displayed:

Bold Fonts

This is normally checked (enabled). When unchecked, xterm will not use bold fonts. The setting corresponds to the allowBoldFonts resource.

Line-Drawing Characters (font-linedrawing)

When set, tells xterm to draw its own line-drawing characters. Otherwise it relies on the font containing these. Compare to the forceBoxChars resource.

Packed Font (font-packed)

When set, tells xterm to use the minimum glyph-width from a font when displaying characters. Use the maximum width (unchecked) to help display proportional fonts. Compare to the forcePackedFont resource.

Doublesized Characters (font-doublesize)

When set, xterm may ask the font server to produce scaled versions of the normal font, for VT102 double-size characters.

The third section allows you to modify the way it is specified:

TrueType Fonts (render-font)

If the renderFont and corresponding resources were set, this is a further control whether xterm will actually use the Xft library calls to obtain a font.

UTF-8 Encoding (utf8-mode)

This controls whether xterm uses UTF-8 encoding of input/output. It is useful for temporarily switching xterm to display text from an application which does not follow the locale settings. It corresponds to the utf8 resource.

UTF-8 Fonts (utf8-fonts)

This controls whether xterm uses UTF-8 fonts for display. It is useful for temporarily switching xterm to display text from an application which does not follow the locale settings. It combines the utf8 and utf8Fonts resources.

UTF-8 Titles (utf8-titles)

This controls whether xterm accepts UTF-8 encoding for title control sequences. It corresponds to the utf8Fonts resource.

Initially the checkmark is set according to both the utf8 and utf8Fonts resource values. If the latter is set to “always”, the checkmark is disabled. Likewise, if there are no fonts given in the utf8Fonts subresources, then the checkmark also is disabled.

The standard XTerm app-defaults file defines both sets of fonts, while the UXTerm app-defaults file defines only one set. assuming the standard app-defaults files, this command will launch xterm able to switch between UTF-8 and ISO-8859-1 encoded fonts:

uxterm -class XTerm

The fourth section allows you to enable or disable special operations which can be controlled by writing escape sequences to the terminal. These are disabled if the SendEvents feature is enabled: Allow Color Ops (allow-font-ops)

This corresponds to the allowColorOps resource. Enable or disable control sequences that set/query the colors.

Allow Font Ops (allow-font-ops)

This corresponds to the allowFontOps resource. Enable or disable control sequences that set/query the font.

Allow Tcap Ops (allow-tcap-ops)

Enable or disable control sequences that query the terminal’s notion of its function-key strings, as termcap or terminfo capabilities. This corresponds to the allowTcapOps resource.

Allow Title Ops (allow-title-ops)

Enable or disable control sequences that modify the window title or icon name. This corresponds to the allowTitleOps resource.

Allow Window Ops (allow-window-ops)

Enable or disable extended window control sequences (as used in dtterm). This corresponds to the allowWindowOps resource.

Source: http://invisible-island.net/xterm/manpage/xterm.html