[How to] Install custom font on your rooted Droid

[ei8htohms]

Standard disclaimer: Hack your phone at your own risk, always.

Now that we have su on the Droid, the first thing I wanted to do was change the font. The standard font is fine (exceptional really in the grand scheme of things), but I spent an inordinate amount of time creating a custom font based on the original Android logo that I used forever on my G1 and I wanted to put it on my Droid, so...

1. Your phone must be rooted.
2. You have to have ADB functioning OR a recovery image with Nandroid back-up/restore from the recovery menu (SirPsychoS 0.11.0 and above I believe).

You can change the default font in Android by replacing it with any compatible TrueType font (.ttf). Just find the font you like and rename it to DroidSans.ttf AND DroidSans-Bold.ttf and then put them into /system/fonts in place of the default files located there. There are a ton of Android compatible fonts located in this thread on xda:

G1 FONTS! Post them here!!!!

If you want the font to display bold characters properly, you really need to find a font that also has a bold version and replace the normal and bold DroidSans files accordingly, but if you just make two copies of a single .ttf file and rename them DroidSans.ttf and DroidSans-Bold.ttf it will still work fine, just without some of the bold formatting.

So after you selected the font you want, renamed it to DroidSans.ttf and DroidSans-Bold.ttf, create a folder on your SD card called "new_font" (or whatever) and paste both files there. Then create another folder called "orig_font" (or whatever) so you can have some place to put the original .ttf files so you can restore them later. You can just rename them in /system/fonts to DroidSans.bak or similar if you choose, I prefer to store them on the SD card.

From an ADB shell (Warning: Do not copy and paste these lines of code, the "[or whatever]" comments are meant to be indicate that my folder names (orig_font and new_font) can be replaced by the folder names of your choice.):

su
mount -o remount /dev/block/mtdblock4 /system
mount -o remount /dev/block/mmcblk0 /sdcard
cat /system/fonts/DroidSans.ttf > /sdcard/orig_font[or whatever]/DroidSans.ttf
cat /system/fonts/DroidSans-Bold.ttf > /sdcard/orig_font[or whatever]/DroidSans-Bold.ttf
cat /sdcard/new_font[or whatever]/DroidSans.ttf > /system/fonts/DroidSans.ttf
cat /sdcard/new_font[or whatever]/DroidSans-Bold.ttf > /system/fonts/DroidSans-Bold.ttf
mount -o ro,remount /dev/block/mtdblock4 /system
sync
reboot

From Terminal:

su
mount -o remount /dev/block/mtdblock4 /system
cat /system/fonts/DroidSans.ttf > /sdcard/orig_font [or whatever]/DroidSans.ttf
cat /system/fonts/DroidSans-Bold.ttf > /sdcard/orig_font [or whatever]/DroidSans-Bold.ttf
cat /sdcard/new_font [or whatever]/DroidSans.ttf > /system/fonts/DroidSans.ttf
cat /sdcard/new_font [or whatever]/DroidSans-Bold.ttf > /system/fonts/DroidSans-Bold.ttf
mount -o ro,remount /dev/block/mtdblock4 /system
sync
reboot

Only change the font AFTER creating a Nandroid back-up, especially if you doing so from Terminal. You will absolutely have to restore the back-up or adb in to restore the original font if you accidentally delete it or replace it with something incompatible.

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The DroidLogo font is scaled pretty well for the Android OS and displays nicely on both the G1 and the Droid (at least) and has a proper normal and bold version, so will properly display bold text on the phone. Most folks will probably find it not completely utilitarian (not quite as easy to read), but I'm completely used to it and don't feel like I'm looking at Android without it at this point.

Feel free to use it on your phone if you'd like and any devs that want to use it in an application or website can feel free as well, just give me a credit of some sort please.

Here's what the DroidLogo font looks like:




Enjoy!

[Manigma77]

This is a Great and Informative thread, Now that I have the new font, what i'd really like to know is how to change the color of the font in the taskbar.

Thanx for posting this

[ei8htohms]

...what i'd really like to know is how to change the color of the font in the taskbar.

I think you'd have to do that by making changes in framework-res.apk, but I don't have the foggiest idea about how to go about that. Ask around though, some folks have changed it already (you'll notice from my screenshot I'm using the one with the black bar and translucent window shade).

[mazz0310]

Awesome, I may just have to try this.

[Manigma77]

I didn't like the bold font, it was too hard to read, so I installed the regular font in both places. (of course i renamed the regular font to bold and put in a seperate folder first)

Now, i think it looks awesome

[mazz0310]

I didn't like the bold font, it was too hard to read, so I installed the regular font in both places. (of course i renamed the regular font to bold and put in a seperate folder first)

Now, i think it looks awesome

Mind posting a screenshot?

[kevdog]

I tend to agree with not preferring the bold Droid font. The regular font does take some getting used to. Here is a screen cap with the normal font acting as both the normal and bold variants:

[Breezer23]

Will any of the fonts from 1001 Fonts .com work or are there specific guidelines for acceptible fonts?

[ei8htohms]

Will any of the fonts from 1001 Fonts .com work or are there specific guidelines for acceptible fonts?

There are size and scaling issues with some fonts, but I don't know anyway to know ahead of time if they'll work on the phone. Just try them out and see. Load my font first (since we know it works) and remove them so you're sure you understand the process (WITH ADB), then try some others.

Check out the G1 fonts thread on xda too. There are tons of fonts attached and / or linked from that thread.

[Manigma77]

Screenshot of regular fonts