Using External Fonts in Android View

Android

Updated on Jul 19, 2013 8.6K Views by Nilanchala

This tutorial explains example for using external fonts in Android View. Android applications are capable of loading the external font files with .ttf extension. Follow below simple steps to create an example that uses custom font on TextView.

At first, download a font of your choice. Note that android supports .ttf extension. Here I have downloaded Maximum.ttf file.
Create a new folder font in your assets folder and paste your recently downloaded font file.
We can change the font settings for a view simply by adding two lines of code

TextView textview = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.textView);
Typeface font = Typeface.createFromAsset(getContext().getAssets(), "fonts/Maximum.ttf");
textView. setTypeface(font);

This solution will work for you, but sometimes you may have to maintain the theme font across the application for each of the text view you use. You can do that by just extending your class from android TextView. Below is the code to my customized TextView.

import android.content.Context;
import android.graphics.Typeface;
import android.util.AttributeSet;
import android.widget.TextView;

public class CustomTextView extends TextView {
	public CustomTextView(Context context) {
		super(context);
		setFont();
	}
	public CustomTextView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {
		super(context, attrs);
		setFont();
	}
	public CustomTextView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs, int defStyle) {
		super(context, attrs, defStyle);
		setFont();
	}

	private void setFont() {
		Typeface font = Typeface.createFromAsset(getContext().getAssets(), "fonts/Maximum.ttf");
		setTypeface(font, Typeface.NORMAL);
	}
}

Now change the following in your android layout xml file

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:background="#0F0F0F">

    <com.javatechig.droid.ui.CustomTextView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="@string/font_sample_text"
        android:textSize="18dp"
        android:textColor="#AAD4DE" />

    <com.javatechig.droid.ui.CustomTextView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="@string/font_sample_text"
        android:textColor="#FFDE46"
        android:textSize="24dp"/>

    <com.javatechig.droid.ui.CustomTextView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="@string/font_sample_text"
        android:textSize="30dp"
        android:textColor="#7FBA00"/>
</LinearLayout>

Here is the output of the above code

Download

Android UI

500

newest oldest most voted

Aslam Hossin

It’s working properly in lower version of android but upper version like Lollipop nothing has been changed. How can I do this in Lollipop and other upper device ?

purna

the assets folder should be created under main. It is not in res.

sardasht aziz

well done

Nilanchala Panigrahy

Currently android studio doesn’t support real time ttf rendering. You must run in simulator or device to test.

Rafael Anastacio Alves

Same for Eclipse?

yes. pretty much same for eclipse.

careful7j

Dat awesome thing, however if you try to use it listView you will get a terrible performnace. To fix it, make font a static variable to it not call on assets up on every textView.