---
name: "urxvt-font-size"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "rxvt-unicode"
version: "9.31-3+b2"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/urxvt-font-size"
---

# urxvt-font-size(1)

interactive font size setter

## NAME

font-size - interactive font size setter

## USAGE

Put the font-size script into `$HOME`/.urxvt/ext/ and add it to the list of enabled perl-extensions in ~/.Xresources:

```
  URxvt.perl-ext-common: ...,font-size
```

The extension automatically binds Ctrl++ to the 'increase' function, Ctrl+- to 'decrease', and Ctrl+0 to 'reset'. To use the other available functions or change the keys, add some keybindings of your own:

```
  URxvt.keysym.C-Up:     font-size:increase
  URxvt.keysym.C-Down:   font-size:decrease
  URxvt.keysym.C-S-Up:   font-size:incglobal
  URxvt.keysym.C-S-Down: font-size:decglobal
  URxvt.keysym.C-equal:  font-size:reset
  URxvt.keysym.C-slash:  font-size:show
```

Note that for urxvt versions older than 9.21 the resources have to look like this:

```
  URxvt.keysym.C-Up:     perl:font-size:increase
  URxvt.keysym.C-Down:   perl:font-size:decrease
  URxvt.keysym.C-S-Up:   perl:font-size:incglobal
  URxvt.keysym.C-S-Down: perl:font-size:decglobal
  URxvt.keysym.C-equal:  perl:font-size:reset
  URxvt.keysym.C-slash:  perl:font-size:show
```

Supported functions:

- •

  increase/decrease:

  ```
        increase or decrease the font size of the current terminal.
  ```

- •

  incglobal/decglobal:

  ```
        same as above and also adjust the X server values so all newly
        started terminals will use the same fontsize.
  ```

- •

  incsave/decsave:

  ```
        same as incglobal/decglobal and also modify the ~/.Xresources
        file so the changed font sizes will persist over a restart of
        the X server or a reboot.
  ```

- •

  reset:

  ```
        reset the font size to the value of the resource when starting
        the terminal.
  ```

- •

  show

  ```
        show the current value of the 'font' resource in a popup.
  ```

You can also change the step size that the script will use to increase the font size:

```
  URxvt.font-size.step: 4
```

The default step size is 1. This means that with this setting a size change sequence would be for example 8-\>12-\>16-\>20 instead of 8-\>9-\>10-\>11-\>12 etc. Please note that many X11 fonts are only available in specific sizes, though, and odd sizes are often not available, resulting in an effective step size of 2 instead of 1 in that case.