How to change fontFamily of TextView in Android

Question

So I'd like to change the android:fontFamily in Android but I don't see any pre-defined fonts in Android. How do I select one of the pre-defined ones? I don't really need to define my own TypeFace but all I need is something different from what it shows right now.

<TextView
    android:id="@+id/HeaderText"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
    android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
    android:layout_marginTop="52dp"
    android:gravity="center"
    android:text="CallerBlocker"
    android:textSize="40dp"
    android:fontFamily="Arial"
 />

It seems what I did up there won't really work! BTW android:fontFamily="Arial" was a stupid attempt!

Answer 1

I am using excellent library Calligraphy by Chris Jenx designed to allow you to use custom fonts in your android application. Give it a try!

Answer 2

To set Roboto programmatically:

paint.setTypeface(Typeface.create("sans-serif-thin", Typeface.NORMAL));

Answer 3

<string name="font_family_display_4_material">sans-serif-light</string>
<string name="font_family_display_3_material">sans-serif</string>
<string name="font_family_display_2_material">sans-serif</string>
<string name="font_family_display_1_material">sans-serif</string>
<string name="font_family_headline_material">sans-serif</string>
<string name="font_family_title_material">sans-serif-medium</string>
<string name="font_family_subhead_material">sans-serif</string>
<string name="font_family_menu_material">sans-serif</string>
<string name="font_family_body_2_material">sans-serif-medium</string>
<string name="font_family_body_1_material">sans-serif</string>
<string name="font_family_caption_material">sans-serif</string>
<string name="font_family_button_material">sans-serif-medium</string>

Answer 4

I just want to mention that the hell with the fonts inside Android is about to end, because this year on Google IO we finally got this -> https://developer.android.com/preview/features/working-with-fonts.html

Now there is a new resource type a font and you can place all your application fonts inside res/fonts folder and access then with R.font.my_custom_font, just like you can access string res values, drawable res values etc. You have even chance to create font-face xml file, which is gonna be set of your custom fonts (about italic, bold and underline attr).

Read the link above for more info. Let's see the support.

Answer 5

You set style in res/layout/value/style.xml like that:

<style name="boldText">
    <item name="android:textStyle">bold|italic</item>
    <item name="android:textColor">#FFFFFF</item>
</style>

and to use this style in main.xml file use:

style="@style/boldText"

Answer 6

From android 4.1 / 4.2 / 5.0, the following Roboto font families are available:

android:fontFamily="sans-serif"           // roboto regular
android:fontFamily="sans-serif-light"     // roboto light
android:fontFamily="sans-serif-condensed" // roboto condensed
android:fontFamily="sans-serif-black"     // roboto black
android:fontFamily="sans-serif-thin"      // roboto thin (android 4.2)
android:fontFamily="sans-serif-medium"    // roboto medium (android 5.0)

in combination with

android:textStyle="normal|bold|italic"

this 16 variants are possible:

• Roboto regular
• Roboto italic
• Roboto bold
• Roboto bold italic
• Roboto-Light
• Roboto-Light italic
• Roboto-Thin
• Roboto-Thin italic
• Roboto-Condensed
• Roboto-Condensed italic
• Roboto-Condensed bold
• Roboto-Condensed bold italic
• Roboto-Black
• Roboto-Black italic
• Roboto-Medium
• Roboto-Medium italic

fonts.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <string name="font_family_light">sans-serif-light</string>
    <string name="font_family_medium">sans-serif-medium</string>
    <string name="font_family_regular">sans-serif</string>
    <string name="font_family_condensed">sans-serif-condensed</string>
    <string name="font_family_black">sans-serif-black</string>
    <string name="font_family_thin">sans-serif-thin</string>
</resources>