Modifying Faces

Here are the commands for changing the font of a face:

M-x set-face-font RET face RET font RET

Change face face to use font font. See section Font Specification Options, for more information about font naming under X.

M-x make-face-bold RET face RET

Convert face face to use a bold version of its current font.

M-x make-face-italic RET face RET

Convert face face to use a italic version of its current font.

M-x make-face-bold-italic RET face RET

Convert face face to use a bold-italic version of its current font.

M-x make-face-unbold RET face RET

Convert face face to use a non-bold version of its current font.

M-x make-face-unitalic RET face RET

Convert face face to use a non-italic version of its current font.

Here are the commands for setting the colors and underline flag of a face:

M-x set-face-foreground RET face RET color RET

Use color color for the foreground of characters in face face.

M-x set-face-background RET face RET color RET

Use color color for the background of characters in face face. On a black-and-white display, the colors you can use for the background are `black', `white', `gray', `gray1' and `gray3'. Emacs supports the gray colors by using background stipple patterns instead of a color.

M-x set-face-stipple RET face RET pattern RET

Use stipple pattern pattern for the background of characters in face face.

M-x list-colors-display

Display the defined color names and show what the colors look like.

M-x set-face-underline-p RET face RET flag RET

Specify whether to underline characters in face face.

M-x invert-face RET face RET

Swap the foreground and background colors of face face.

M-x modify-face RET face RET attributes...

Change various attributes of face face. This command prompts for all the attribute of the face, one attribute at a time. For the color and stipple attributes, the attribute's current value is the default--type just RET if you don't want to change that attribute. Type `none' if you want to clear out the attribute.

You can also use X resources to specify attributes of particular faces. See section X Resources.