Android - Using Custom Font

Question

I applied a custom font to a TextView, but it doesn't seems to change the typeface.

Here is my code:

    Typeface myTypeface = Typeface.createFromAsset(getAssets(), "fonts/myFont.ttf");
    TextView myTextView = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.myTextView);
    myTextView.setTypeface(myTypeface);

Can anyone please get me out of this issue?

Answer 1

You can use PixlUI at https://github.com/neopixl/PixlUI

import their .jar and use it in XML

 <com.neopixl.pixlui.components.textview.TextView
    android:id="@+id/textView1"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:text="@string/hello_world"
    pixlui:typeface="GearedSlab.ttf" />

Answer 2

For Custom Fonts in android create a folder within assets folder name it "fonts" place your desired fonts.ttf or .otf file in it.

If you extends UIBaseFragment:

Typeface font = Typeface.createFromAsset(getActivity().getAssets(), "fonts/Arial.ttf");
        tv.setTypeface(font);

else if extends Activity:

Typeface font = Typeface.createFromAsset(getContext().getAssets(), "fonts/Arial.ttf");
        tv.setTypeface(font);

Answer 3

Provided that you placed the font in the right place and there is no error in the font file itself, your code should work like that, RATTLESNAKE.

However, it would be a lot easier if you could just define a font in your layout xml, like this:

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    tools:context=".MainActivity" >

    <!-- This text view is styled with the app theme -->
    <com.innovattic.font.FontTextView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="This uses my font in bold italic style" />

    <!-- This text view is styled here and overrides the app theme -->
    <com.innovattic.font.FontTextView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        app:flFont="anotherFont"
        android:textStyle="normal"
        android:text="This uses another font in normal style" />

    <!-- This text view is styled with a style and overrides the app theme -->
    <com.innovattic.font.FontTextView
        style="@style/StylishFont"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="This also uses another font in normal style" />

</LinearLayout>

With the accompanying res/values/styles.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools">

    <!-- Application theme -->
    <!-- Use a different parent if you don't want Holo Light -->
    <style name="AppTheme" parent="android:Theme.Holo.Light.DarkActionBar">
        <item name="android:textViewStyle">@style/MyTextViewStyle</item>
    </style>

    <!-- Style to use for ALL text views (including FontTextView) -->
    <!-- Use a different parent if you don't want Holo Light -->
    <style name="MyTextViewStyle" parent="@android:style/Widget.Holo.Light.TextView">
        <item name="android:textAppearance">@style/MyTextAppearance</item>
    </style>

    <!-- Text appearance to use for ALL text views (including FontTextView) -->
    <!-- Use a different parent if you don't want Holo Light -->
    <style name="MyTextAppearance" parent="@android:style/TextAppearance.Holo">
        <!-- Alternatively, reference this font with the name "aspergit" -->
        <!-- Note that only our own TextView's will use the font attribute -->
        <item name="flFont">someFont</item>
        <item name="android:textStyle">bold|italic</item>
    </style>

    <!-- Alternative style, maybe for some other widget -->
    <style name="StylishFont">
        <item name="flFont">anotherFont</item>
        <item name="android:textStyle">normal</item>
    </style>

</resources>

I created a couple of tools specifically for this purpose. Refer to this project from GitHub, or take a look at this blog post which explains the whole thing.

Answer 4

After trying most of the solutions described in this thread, I accidentally found Calligraphy (https://github.com/chrisjenx/Calligraphy) - a library by Christopher Jenkins that lets you easily add custom fonts to your app. The advantages of his lib comparing to approaches suggested here are:

1. you don't have to introduce your own overriden TextView component, you use the built-in TextView
2. you can easily include the library using gradle
3. The library doesn't limit your choice of fonts; you just add your preferred ones to the assets dir
4. you not only get custom text views — all the other text-based Android compontents will also be displayed using your custom font.

Answer 5

Unfortunately there is no good solution for this.

I've seen the many articles about using a custom TextView but what they forget it that it's not only textviews that can implement fonts & there are textviews hidden away in other views inaccessible to the developer; I'm not even going to get started on Spannable.

You could use an external font utility like:

Calligraphy Font Tool

BUT This loops over every view in the application on it's creation and even this utility misses some views (ViewPager renders normal font) then you have the problem that is when Google updates their build tools this will occasionally crash because it needs to target deprecated properties. It's also a little slow as it uses Java's Reflection.

It's really up to Google to fix this. We need better font support in Android. If you look at the solution from iOS they literally have 100's of fonts built in to select from. Want a custom font? Simply drop a TFF in and it's usable..

For now were now limited to the offering that Google offers us which is extremely limited but fortunately mobile optimized.

Answer 6

Make sure to paste the above code into onCreate() after your call to the super and the call to setContentView(). This small detail kept my hung up for awhile.