Ok I tried putting it in .Xdefaults. This is my current .Xdefaults: xterm*background: black xterm*foreground: white xterm*cursorColor: SkyBlue xterm*font: -bitstream-bitstream vera sans mono-medium-r-normal- *-14-*-*-*-*-*-*-* xterm*ScrollBar: off xterm*SaveLines: 2500 Xft.antialias: 1 Xft.dpi: 93 Xft.hinting: 1 Xft.hintstyle: hintfull Xft.rgba: rgb No change in xterm but GTK apps have changes. The menubar fonts in firefox, for example, are smaller. Amit