[ThugEsquire (OP)]

Source:
Mod Type: Theme     Difficulty: Moderate     Mod Status: RC 1     Mod Base: AOSP     Carrier:
Requires Root: Yes     Apply In: CWM Recovery     Optional:      Optional:      Android Version: 4.0.2 (ICS)

Before you make a request, please read this note.

If you're into theming, you may have replaced Roboto-Regular with a different font, but noticed that Gingerbread-friendly font packs that replace Roboto-Bold.ttf usually cause ICS/JB to bootloop. Tools like Font Installer and FontChanger are cool (props to the devs) but kind of a drag because they don't replace the Bold/Italic/Bold Italic versions of the fonts. The reason is because ICS/JB pays attention to the font metadata in ways that Gingerbread does not, and many fonts don't have the correct weight/classification/family metadata.

To make a working font pack you must edit the metadata of the Bold, Italic and Bold-Italic fonts themselves to reflect their proper weight and design. Note: these instructions are for making font packs for AOSP builds of ICS/JB. These are not for MIUI!

Disclaimer: follow these instructions and use my font packs at your own risk! I've tested them myself, but I cannot be held responsible for anything that happens as a result of following these instructions or flashing my font packs!

I suppose you could use a different app, but I used FontCreator 6.0 Pro, so this guide is for FC6P. Updated 2012-07-11

• If the font is not in TTF format, convert the font to TTF first. Make sure each glyph maintains its title, or else you'll have strange ligature issues (i.e. "gm" will turn into "`"). I find that FontCreator is not great at converting formats, so google a different tool.
  
  
• Then open the TrueType-format font (which will end in .ttf) in FontCreator.
  
  
  
• Go to Format > Settings.
  
  
  
• Under the Classification tab, make sure the weight is correct (Normal (Regular) for Regular and Italic, Bold for Bold and Bold Italic).
  
  
  
• Make sure the Font Design (Windows) and Mac Style are correct (Regular for Regular, Bold for Bold, Italic for Italic, Bold AND Italic for Bold Italic).
  
  
  
• Click OK.
  
  
  
• Go to Format > Naming.
  
  
  
• Make sure all the fonts you want to use use the same Font Family ("Roboto" in the case of Roboto, etc).
  
  
  
• Make sure Full Font Name and Postscript Name are correct ("Roboto Regular" for Roboto Regular, etc., "Roboto-Regular" etc. for Postscript Name)
  
  
  
• Click OK.
  
  
  
• PRO TIP: While you're here, clear out the glyph for .notdef. It's ugly and will show up in your launcher and potentially other places if the name of your homescreen item gets abbreviated.
  
  
  
• Save the font.
  
  
  
• Once you've done the above for each font, add the fonts to a folder called "fonts" and put that inside a folder called "system".
  
  
  
• Put the "system" folder in the same folder as your META-INF folder (use an updater-script made for ICS).
  
  
  
• Zip up the META-INF and system folders into a normal ZIP file.
  
  
  
• Flash the zip using ClockworkMod or ROM Manager.
  
  
  
• Be baller.

And here is one font pack to get you started, my first, Nokia Pure, with the custom bold/italic/bold italic fonts I made myself: Now I'm going to get some sleep. UPDATED ZIP 2/4/2012:

FontPack-ICS-NokiaPure-ThugEsquire.zip (doesn't work in JB)

If you like this, hit Thanks!

Edited by ThugEsquire, 29 August 2012 - 11:57 AM.

[ThugEsquire (OP)]

NOTE (added 2012-08-29)

SomeGuyDude, on 14 August 2012 - 06:38 PM, said:

Guys I think it's worth reading the OP a little more. JB fonts are far harder to make than ICS, so slamming the guy with requests probably ain't gonna get anywhere, haha.

If I may weigh in here:

I come back to check the thread every few weeks or so, and I've noticed that most of the requests people have made have been for converting a single weight of a typeface into an entire library of fonts, which is basically asking me to do the most work you can possibly ask me to do. Apologies: it's not going to happen. I am simply disinterested in making all of the different weights for any typeface, let alone one that wouldn't be considered usable. It takes a lot of effort, and I think that if you fully read the OP, you will understand why.

Chucklehead's been very nice to go through the effort of making font packs for a lot of you already, so I think he deserves a lot of gratitude for that.

As far as I'm concerned, the typefaces that I would be happy to make into font packs are typefaces that:

• Already have official regular, bold, italic, bold italic, light, medium, condensed, whatever variants. Most fonts don't have all of these, but the more it has, the better. At a bare minimum, the typeface has to have official regular, bold, italic, bold italic and light variants for me to seriously consider making a font pack out of it.
  
• Aren't missing a huge number of glyphs (aka, don't produce a ton of "boxes"). Glyphs are the visual representation of each letter, number, or symbol, and a lot of font designers have designed fonts with limited use in mind, or are simply lazy and have not actually made glyphs for a ton of characters that are necessary when using the font in a UI. When these fonts are used, you get a ton of "boxes" instead of characters because the font can't actually render the character, since it doesn't have a glyph.
  
• Work well in UI. Some fonts are so wide that they actually break the interfaces. It's not anyone's fault--it's just not supposed to be used for UI. This also ties into point criterion 2. If you would like to see a few examples of fonts that do work well, check out my favourites and the fonts I recommend.
  
• Are provided to me in a ZIP containing all the variants as a single direct-download link, such as Dropbox, YouSendIt, Mediafire, or your own personal hosting. I don't really care which service you use: the point is that I am not going to run around the Internet hunting down the font or any of its variants. You might be surprised what you can find if you just Bing it. (Just kidding--I use Google.)

Please keep in mind that I posted the instructions so you would know how to do it yourself. I basically gave you the keys to the kingdom. If you also want me to open the door for you, request a font that meets the above criteria. Thanks for understanding--you guys are awesome.

===============================================

Donations are always accepted, never expected. I accept donations via Serve, Venmo, Dwolla and Amazon Payments.

If you would like to donate to my creative fund via Serve, you may do so here. Otherwise contact me via PM.

Font Packs for ICS by ThugEsquire
Updated 2012-07-11 -- Some available in ROM Manager!

Thug Favourite
Klavika: http://minus.com/lbptmUXuUbTswz NEW (2012-07-11) This sans serif looks futuristic without sacrificing readability. The Facebook logotype was based on this typeface, and it's my favourite font to use with Jelly Bean. This font pack is the first font pack I've made to include Light and Condensed versions of the fonts, as well as replacing DroidSans (regular, bold, fallback, and mono). This is the most complete font pack I've yet made, and may be the most complete font pack ever made, replacing 14 fonts in all. I hope you like it.

Past Thug Favourites (some may not work with JB)
Asap: http://minus.com/m6Mvh92oS Smooth and clean. (works with JB)
Lato: http://minus.com/m3d6mQu46 Very crisp font, I like this, also better than Helvetica. (works with JB)
Nokia Pure: http://minus.com/mbqQYRGXge Used to be my favourite until I found Asap, which is smoother. (does not work with JB)
Segoe WP: http://minus.com/mqNhhM7AE Used on Windows Phone 7.

Recommended
Coconut Medium: http://minus.com/mEfzGrlfp
Helvetica: http://minus.com/mydPGTvPw
Helvetica Neue: http://minus.com/mTUtmJq9J
Ubuntu Light: http://minus.com/mICT4sg4O
Ubuntu Regular http://minus.com/mcIseteoO
Frutiger Next LT: http://minus.com/mRsWMiISX

ICS Default (revert to stock)
Roboto: http://minus.com/mEH0egI0m

Requests
Walkway Semibold: http://minus.com/mDJiFuO3A
Times New Roman: http://minus.com/mVdxnv4Io
Tork: http://minus.com/m0PQoheKh
Chococooky: http://minus.com/mbq0vqgQmA
Veggie Burger Medium: http://minus.com/mAwbZZz0w
Sony Sketch EF: http://minus.com/m7TNrzwIa
Comic Sans: http://minus.com/mbf0VUtnBw
Antipasto: http://minus.com/mc6YmD2u1
Caviar Dreams: http://minus.com/mNv8TTBth
Dekar Light: http://minus.com/mbmodjfGdl
Dekar Regular: http://minus.com/mJwH5KUNS

Edited by ThugEsquire, 29 August 2012 - 11:59 AM.

[davey11]

Would you take a request?
If so can you convert this file.
http://db.tt/NfdkU1l1

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

Edited by davey11, 13 January 2012 - 01:02 PM.

[ThugEsquire (OP)]

davey11, on 13 January 2012 - 12:58 PM, said:

Would you take a request? If so can you convert this file. http://db.tt/NfdkU1l1 Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

Well, that's an APK. Do you have a font file?

[davey11]

ThugEsquire, on 13 January 2012 - 03:24 PM, said:

Well, that's an APK. Do you have a font file?

I googled for that font and dl a true type font file.
http://db.tt/Vsf8gf7q
If that's not the type of file needed, sorry and thanks for your time.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

[Skilover]

Doesn't any font have to be named "roboto" in order for the system to use it? The way the font apps work is to substitute out the real Roboto Font with another font named roboto. I'm not sure if this means the font identifiers that you are editing have to say roboto as well, or if they can have the real name, as long as the have the right bold, regular, etc. designations. I'm also not sure why what you are doing works. It would have to mean every font is lacking identification information for them to not work without being edited. Is that the case? I've tried lots of fonts on ICS, and they all fail (as you say, the bold ones fail). I'm glad you've found a fix, I'm just a bit confused as to why it works, and also how to name the fonts in the folder so the phone will recognize them. Have you shared this with the FontChanger and other developers--they might be able to incorporate this in their apps.

[ThugEsquire (OP)]

Skilover, on 13 January 2012 - 08:45 PM, said:

Doesn't any font have to be named "roboto" in order for the system to use it? The way the font apps work is to substitute out the real Roboto Font with another font named roboto. I'm not sure if this means the font identifiers that you are editing have to say roboto as well, or if they can have the real name, as long as the have the right bold, regular, etc. designations. I'm also not sure why what you are doing works. It would have to mean every font is lacking identification information for them to not work without being edited. Is that the case? I've tried lots of fonts on ICS, and they all fail (as you say, the bold ones fail). I'm glad you've found a fix, I'm just a bit confused as to why it works, and also how to name the fonts in the folder so the phone will recognize them. Have you shared this with the FontChanger and other developers--they might be able to incorporate this in their apps.

You're right, the fonts still have to be named Roboto-Regular.ttf, Roboto-Bold.ttf, Roboto-BoldItalic.ttf, and Roboto-Italic.ttf. I'll update the original post. And yes, most fonts that people have tried to use do not have the appropriate metadata. Like I was saying, ICS is clearly looking at the Bold/BoldItalic/Italic fonts and expecting them to have the proper metadata. Keep in mind that most people want to use non-professional fonts they've found for free online. Very few people want to use Futura or Adobe Caslon, which are more likely to have the correct metadata because they are commercially made.

[aron7awol]

I tried to flash your Nokia Pure zip on my GSM Galaxy Nexus but I got a Status 0 error in CWM recovery.

Edit: I ended up getting it to flash by cooking up a new updater-script and using the update-binary from an AOKP ROM zip.

Edited by aron7awol, 15 January 2012 - 08:52 AM.

[davey11]

I realized that the file I posted was not one that could be worked with. Can you try this:
http://db.tt/cAcynIEm
Thanks.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

[TerminX]

Thanks for the Nokia Pure font. I didn't use your zip (just copied the .ttfs over manually) but it's a nice looking font. The stock ICS Roboto font is nice itself, but a little change never hurt!