How to use fonts for normal text for org-mode tables?

Question

Since the Emacs version upgrade to version 28 org-mode tables have become very small in size. Their font size has been reduced. Is there a way to tell Emacs to use the default font for the tables?

Minimal example that reproduces my issue:

* The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog (123 456 7890)

  The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog (123 456 7890)

  |  A | B                                                          |
  |----+------------------------------------------------------------|
  | 10 | The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog (123 456 7890) |
  | 20 | The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog (123 456 7890) |
  | 30 | The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog (123 456 7890) |

How it looks on my Emacs (emacs -q):

Org-mode normal text has this font:

mac-ct:-*-Menlo-normal-normal-normal-*-12-*-*-*-m-0-iso10646-1 (#x51)

But org-mode table has this font:

mac-ct:-*-Courier-normal-normal-normal-*-12-*-*-*-m-0-iso10646-1 (#x10)

Here is the C-u C-x = output of the normal text above the table:

             position: 88 of 473 (18%), column: 25
            character: p (displayed as p) (codepoint 112, #o160, #x70)
              charset: ascii (ASCII (ISO646 IRV))
code point in charset: 0x70
               script: latin
               syntax: w    which means: word
             category: .:Base, L:Strong L2R, a:ASCII, l:Latin, r:Roman
             to input: type "C-x 8 RET 70" or "C-x 8 RET LATIN SMALL LETTER P"
          buffer code: #x70
            file code: #x70 (encoded by coding system utf-8-unix)
              display: by this font (glyph code):
    mac-ct:-*-Menlo-normal-normal-normal-*-12-*-*-*-m-0-iso10646-1 (#x53)

Character code properties: customize what to show
  name: LATIN SMALL LETTER P
  general-category: Ll (Letter, Lowercase)
  decomposition: (112) ('p')

There are text properties here:
  fontified            t

Here is the C-u C-x = output of the text in the table:

             position: 361 of 473 (76%), column: 26
            character: o (displayed as o) (codepoint 111, #o157, #x6f)
              charset: ascii (ASCII (ISO646 IRV))
code point in charset: 0x6F
               script: latin
               syntax: w    which means: word
             category: .:Base, L:Strong L2R, a:ASCII, l:Latin, r:Roman
             to input: type "C-x 8 RET 6f" or "C-x 8 RET LATIN SMALL LETTER O"
          buffer code: #x6F
            file code: #x6F (encoded by coding system utf-8-unix)
              display: by this font (glyph code):
    mac-ct:-*-Courier-normal-normal-normal-*-12-*-*-*-m-0-iso10646-1 (#x52)

Character code properties: customize what to show
  name: LATIN SMALL LETTER O
  general-category: Ll (Letter, Lowercase)
  decomposition: (111) ('o')

There are text properties here:
  face                 org-table
  fontified            t

Output of M-x describe-face RET org-table RET:

Face: org-table (sample) (customize this face)

Documentation:
Face used for tables.

Defined in ‘org-faces.el’.


           Family: unspecified
          Foundry: unspecified
            Width: unspecified
           Height: unspecified
           Weight: unspecified
            Slant: unspecified
       Foreground: LightSkyBlue
DistantForeground: unspecified
       Background: unspecified
        Underline: unspecified
         Overline: unspecified
   Strike-through: unspecified
              Box: unspecified
          Inverse: unspecified
          Stipple: unspecified
             Font: unspecified
          Fontset: unspecified
           Extend: unspecified
          Inherit: fixed-pitch

How can I make org-mode table use the same font as normal text?

Answer 1

No guarantees: it seems that since the org-table inherits from fixed-pitch, you get the font family of fixed-pitch which (unless you have modified things) is Monospace. I surmise that you don't have the Monospace family of fonts installed, so you end up going through face-font-family-alternatives for a fallback and that is courier.

This is all theory and surmise, so I could easily have been led astray.

There are a couple of things you can try:

• If your default font Menlo has a monospaced version, you can try using that. The sizes should be compatible (at least much more compatible than Menlo and Courier). I believe you can do that by customizing the org-table face and getting rid of the :Inherit attribute and modifying the family to be that monospace font. That should fall back to Menlo. The trouble with this method is that if you ever change your default font, this is going to stick out like a sore thumb again. BTW, the org-table face must have a monospaced font, otherwise table alignment does not work.

• You can let it fall back to Courier but customize the org-table face to have a somewhat bigger height. This will be trial and error, but maybe start with a scale value of 1.1, which will probably be too big so play around with it changing it very slightly until you are happy with the result.

• you can use a different default font that has a monospaced version (e.g. Liberation) and arrange the fallback to be that font. See the docstring of face-font-family-alternatives for one way to do that.

I should warn you that what I know about fonts is pretty much what I've written here and I'm not even sure that it is correct, so caveat emptor.