set gvim font in .vimrc file

Question

I use the following (Uses Consolas size 11 on Windows, Menlo Regular size 14 on Mac OS X and Inconsolata size 12 everywhere else):

if has("gui_running")
  if has("gui_gtk2")
    set guifont=Inconsolata\ 12
  elseif has("gui_macvim")
    set guifont=Menlo\ Regular:h14
  elseif has("gui_win32")
    set guifont=Consolas:h11:cANSI
  endif
endif

Edit: And while you're at it, you could take a look at Coding Horror's Programming Fonts blog post.

Edit²: Added MacVim.

Try setting your font from the menu and then typing

:set guifont?

This should display to you the string that Vim has set this option to. You'll need to escape any spaces.

I am trying to set this in .vimrc file like below

For GUI specific settings use the .gvimrc instead of .vimrc, which on Windows is either $HOME\_gvimrc or $VIM\_gvimrc.

Check the :help .gvimrc for details. In essence, on start-up VIM reads the .vimrc. After that, if GUI is activated, it also reads the .gvimrc. IOW, all VIM general settings should be kept in .vimrc, all GUI specific things in .gvimrc. (But if you do no use console VIM then you can simply forget about the .vimrc.)

set guifont=Consolas\ 10

The syntax is wrong. After :set guifont=* you can always check the proper syntax for the font using :set guifont?. VIM Windows syntax is :set guifont=Consolas:h10. I do not see precise specification for that, though it is mentioned in the :help win32-faq.

1. Start a graphical vim session.
2. Do :e $MYGVIMRC Enter
3. Use the graphical font selection dialog to select a font.
4. Type :set guifont= Tab Enter.
5. Type G o to start a new line at the end of the file.
6. Type Ctrl+R followed by :.

The command in step 6 will insert the contents of the : special register which contains the last ex-mode command used. Here that will be the command from step 4, which has the properly formatted font name thanks to the tab completion of the value previously set using the GUI dialog.

For Windows do the following:

1. Note down the font name and font size from the "Edit-Select Font..." menu of "gvim.exec".
2. Then do :e $MYGVIMRC
3. Search for "guifont" string and change it to set guifont=<font name as noted>:h<font size>
4. Save the file and quit.
5. Next time when you execute gvim.exec, you will see the effect.

Although this is an old thread I thought that I would add a comment as I have come across it whilst trying to solve a similar issue; this might help anyone else who may find themselves here:

The backslash character is used to ignore the next character; once added to the font name in my gvimrc it worked; I am on a GNU/Linux machine which does not like spaces. I suspect that the initial post was an error due to the back slash being used on a windows machine.

In example:

:set guifont?  ## From gvim command, would give the following:

set guifont=DejaVu Sans Mono for Powerline 11

Where as I needed to add this line to the gvimrc file for it to be read:

set guifont=DejaVu\ Sans\ Mono\ for\ Powerline\ 11

I had to end up doing

:set guifont=Courier:h10:cANSI