You'll want to guard the function so you don't try to call it on non-X displays (e.g. `emacs -nw`): (when window-system ;; your code ) You might want to access `(display-monitor-attributes-list)` to be more platform portable than the X11 functions (but you'll need to do a bit more work to extract the relevant properties: (let* ((dmal (car (display-monitor-attributes-list))) ; first monitor only (width (nth 3 (assq 'geometry dmal))) (height (nth 4 (assq 'geometry dmal)))) ;; your code ) The test is very specific - you might want to add other, larger screens: (and (>= (x-display-pixel-width) 3840) (>= (x-display-pixel-width) 2160)) Consider measuring the *pixel pitch* rather than the overall size: (< (/ (float (display-mm-height)) (x-display-pixel-width)) 0.1) Reduce the duplication: (setq-default dotspacemacs-default-font (list "Source Code Pro" :size (if (and (eq 3840 (x-display-pixel-width)) (eq 2160 (x-display-pixel-height))) 34 18))) Support more than two sizes: (setq-default dotspacemacs-default-font (list "Source Code Pro" :size (cond ((<= 3840 (x-display-pixel-width)) 34) ((<= 1920 (x-display-pixel-width)) 18) (t 12))))