Ubuntu Change Terminal Font Size & Color

Linux users spend a lot of time on Terminal whether it is writing scripts or running tasks, or monitoring processes. Sometimes you may want to customize the terminal’s font size & color according to your convenience. For example, you may want to increase font size because you feel it is too small. You may want to change font color because it is difficult to read. In this article, we will look at how to change terminal font size & color.

Ubuntu Change Terminal Font Size & Color

Here are the steps to change terminal font size & color.

1. Open terminal

First you need to open terminal window by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T from your desktop. You may also open it from Ubuntu sidebar or using context menu.

2. Open Preferences

Go to preferences as shown in the screenshot.

Please note, these preferences only change the styling of terminal’s appearance but not its functionality. Preferences section allows you to create separate user profiles, each with their own customization. So you can maintain multiple user profiles for a single terminal window.

Right click on terminal window and you will see ‘Preferences’ option in context menu. You may also access it by clicking the hamburger icon ( 3 parallel lines) on navigation bar of the window.

3. Create Profile

Next, we need to create a new profile to store terminal settings for appearance. You can do so by clicking + icon at the right of Profiles option, on left sidebar.

You will be asked to enter a name for the new user profile. Every new profile is assigned default display settings for terminal. You may customize it using the dropdowns & checkboxes shown in the image below. Click Create button to create the new profile.

4. Change Font Settings

Once the profile is created you will see its name listed below Profiles option on the left sidebar. Click your profile name. You will see even more customization options in the right pane.

The customization options are split into 5 tabs – text, color, scrolling, command, compatibility. To change text font size, click ‘Custom Font’ checkbox under Text tab. That will allow you to change terminal’s font style and size. There is a wide variety of font styles to choose from the dropdown. When you select a font style, you will see a small window popup with sample texts and font variants. It also contains a setting to adjust the font size according to your requirement.

When you are done customizing your font style, click Select.

5. Change Font Color

Now go back to the preferences window. Click on Colors tab. You will see all the color-related settings for your terminal.

First, unselect ‘Use colors from system theme’ checkbox in order to be able to customize it. Next, you will see tons of options. You may choose from any of the built-in themes or create your own theme, or simply change a few specific colors like that of cursor, text & highlighting.

6. Change Default Profile

Now that you have created your new profile, it is time to set it as default profile, so that it is automatically loaded for every terminal session and you do not have to manually change it. Click the arrow to the right of your profile name and select ‘Set as default’ option. Restart your terminal and you will see that your new profile has been applied.

In this article, we have learnt how to customize font style & color for terminal. It is quite fun to customize terminal if you use it for a long time every day.

Ubuntu Change Terminal Font Size & Color