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Sunday 3 April 2011

Changing Android's UI default font

I've been recently tipped by haerwu about Font Changer app for rooted Android devices that lets you change Android's user interface default font. I gave it a try and I must say different font makes huge impact on UI "sexiness". See yourself below.


Example screenshots, click for full-res images (Font Changer quick usage tutorial down below):

Default Android font

Nokia Pure - the latest from Nokia (unfortunately doesn't support national characters)

Nokia Sans - put some good old Nokia look into your Android!

Ubuntu font
My personal favourite is Ubuntu - absolutely amazing font that makes UI really stand out. Ubuntu is closely followed by Nokia Pure however for some reason it does not support national characters properly, even if exactly the same ttf font file has no issues displaying Polish-specific letters like "ąśćźż" on my laptop. Weird.

Font Changer quick how-to

Prerequisites:
  1. Rooted Android device (I have Desire Z with CyanogenMod 7.0.0-RC4 at the time of writing).
  2. Favourite font in TTF format, preferably separate files for bold and monospace versions of the font.
  3. Font Changer app installed from Android Market.
Now, to use favourite font, place its TTF files into /sdcard/.fontchanger directory on Android device, keeping following naming convention in place:
  • fontname.ttf - regular variant of the font
  • fontname-bold.ttf - bold variant
  • fontname-mono.ttf - monospace variant
Font Changer should pick up these font files automatically as soon as it starts and applying it is quite straightforward (subject to reboot). Note that you don't need to have TTF files for all variants of given font, if any of these is missing, default Android font will be used instead.

Enjoy!

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