====== Programatically Setting the XTerm Screen Size ====== This is a nice thing that works for any XTerm based terminal, in particular for Mac OS X's default terminal. To change the terminal window size from the command line, use a command of the following form: echo -ne '\e[8;Y;Xt' where ''X'' stands for the desired window width and ''Y'' stands for the desired window height. For example, to get an 80x50 terminal, you could use the following script: #!/bin/sh echo -ne '\e[8;50;80t' or you could place this into an inline function, loaded in your ''.bashrc'' file or similar: function ts { if [[ -n "$1" && -n "$2" && $1 > 0 && $2 > 0 ]]; then echo -ne "\e[8;$2;$1t" fi } function ts8025 { ts 80 25 } You can also set the window size in pixels instead of characters if you prefer. Just replace the 8 in the above command with a 4, like: echo -ne '\e[4;Ypix;Xpixt'