If you’ve heard of the Operator Mono Font, then you’ll know that it contains some of the most fabulous looking ligatures. You’ll also know that this font can cost between $200 and $600 which might be out of your budget.

The Atom development environment, configured to use Operator Mono. The family’s distinctive italics make it easier to spot the names of attributes.

After watching Dan Abramov’s videos and presentation, I really wanted to try Operator Mono out. In fact I almost bought it, but after a brief thought-bubble including my wife questioning why I would spend that much for a font I decided I would try to find a free alternative.

I couldn’t find anything that had the mix of cursive and non cursive text, but I did find FiraCode — which does not have the cursive ligatures but does contain some really nice looking operator ligatures:

FiraCode contains ligatures that enhance your operators, in fact it could even compliment Operator Mono.

Create your own alternative to Operator Mono in 3 steps:

So this morning I spent a few hours playing around with fonts and atom to see if I could make something that would compare to the prestige you see with Operator Mono.

Here’s what I came up with: