increase padding in gnome terminal

Question

I'd like to increase the padding in the gnome terminal, because the default has no padding and hurts my eyes.

(Padding as in: I want space between the window border and where the text input/output is displayed.)

For example:

=[X][-][ ]=============My Terminal==================
|                                                  |
|  $> echo "Padding occurs on both sides for long  |
|     input"                                       |
|                                                  |
|                                                  |
|                                                  |
====================================================

Solution 1

Edited Jun 02 2018: As of Ubuntu 18.04, you need to add one more element selector for this to work.

---

Paul was mostly right. This expanded solution works as of Ubuntu 14.04.1 with GNOME Terminal 3.6.2.

For all versions:

1. Add the following code to ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css:
   

   VteTerminal,
   TerminalScreen,
   vte-terminal {
       padding: 10px 10px 10px 10px;
       -VteTerminal-inner-border: 10px 10px 10px 10px;
   }
   

   Edit: You will need to create the file if it does not already exist (thanks jonS90).

2. Kill all instances of gnome-terminal:

   $ killall gnome-terminal
   

3. Restart gnome-terminal.

Solution 2

I tried all answers here on Ubuntu 16.10 with gnome-terminal 3.20.2 and they didn't work. I found the up-to-date solution in this launchpad thread. In the file ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css (which you may need to create), add this:

vte-terminal {
    padding: 10px;
}

Solution 3

To move the terminal output away from the window borders create the stylesheet ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css with the following setting:

TerminalScreen {
 -VteTerminal-inner-border: 10px 10px 10px 10px;
}

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=163964

Solution 4

Please go through this issue - Unity Terminal 16.04

The Comment on the Wishlist describes is very proper solutions for Ubuntu 16.04 Terminals, where we need to change file ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css:

VteTerminal,
TerminalScreen {
    padding: 10px 10px 10px 10px;
    -VteTerminal-inner-border: 10px 10px 10px 10px;
}

TO

VteTerminal {
    padding: 10px;
}

padding works the same as normal CSS padding.

Solution 5

You can do it with some terminals, for example old xterm

xterm -b 10 -title "-b 10" -e nano &
xterm -title "no border spec" -e nano & 

In the manual man xterm you find how to set fonts, foreground and background colours. Maybe a little tricky to configure, but very flexible.

View more solutions

Comments

[jonS90]

The specified gtk.css file did not exist on my system. I had to create it (and then the solution worked).

[Alp Dener]

I can confirm that this also works for Ubuntu 17.04.

[blockloop]

Works in 17.10.

[Robin Hsu]

So, do I create gtk.css to only have your 3 lines? Or, how can I create a default one?

[phrz]

@RobinHsu if the file exists, add this to the end. If it doesn't, create it, and only add this.

[Alexandre V.]

This is not working on Ubuntu 18.04.

[Alexandre V.]

This is not working on Ubuntu 18.04.

[Daniel Hitzel]

Working on Arch

[Vishnu M.]

This works perfectly in pantheon-terminal (elementary OS Loki) as well.

[Terry Brown]

If you have TRouBLe remembering how those numbers relate to edges, it's Top Right Bottom Left.

[WinEunuuchs2Unix]

@TerryBrown TRouBLe is a nice way. Another is think of hands progressing on an analog clock: 12-3-6-9 (Top, Right, Bottom, Left).

[makim]

for me this is working with ubuntu 20.04

[MetalGodwin]

Skipping ahead to 2022, still works great with both gnome-terminal and terminator on Debian 11. Thanks a bunch, I really enjoyed the inner gap feature of Alacritty, perfect to see it's doable for a tiled terminal such as Terminator! Cheers