How do I change emacs default font size and font type?

Question

I am using emacs 23.3. I need to change the font size and font type, can anyone help me?

Answer 1

If you use Linux/X11, you may need to set this in ~/.Xdefaults. I have set the font there since the other answers here have no effect.

I'm able to see available font settings by running in Emacs: helm-select-xfont

Then I start typing Conso and I see entries like:

-Consolas-normal-normal-normal-*-*-*-*-*-m-0-iso10646-1
...

So then I put it into ~/.Xdefaults, setting size 12 as:

Emacs.font: xft:-*-Consolas-normal-normal-normal-*-12-*-*-*-m-0-iso10646-1

and restart Emacs.