# Identifying fixed-width fonts

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identifying-fixed-width-fonts/345241>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 19, 2006, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identifying-fixed-width-fonts/345241 "2006-02-19T20:23:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identifying-fixed-width-fonts/345241/1 "2006-02-19T20:23:28Z")

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Is there any way in Windows or Microsoft office to tell beforehand if a font is fixed-width, other than trial and error?

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**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identifying-fixed-width-fonts/345241/2 "2006-02-19T23:04:13Z")

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If you click on the drop down arrow next to the font name display box in Word you should see a listing of all your fonts’ names in that font. This makes it very easy to see which are fixed-width.

And almost none of them are. The only one I have is Courier (and its variant Courier New). Most editors still retain a preference for Courier font in a manuscript, just because it makes it so much easier for them to estimate the length of a manuscript something mere word count can’t do. Prestige Elite and Monaco are other such fonts.

But except for those and a very few others, you’d probably have to search for a fixed-width font to download.