Android Devs

In this tutorial, you will learn how to install additional fonts on your Android device in order to support other languages besides English. By following this guide, you will eliminate the small white boxes that appear on web pages, contacts, text messages, etc. when dealing with a language that uses characters or script other than the Roman alphabet.

This method does not alter your English language settings, so text on buttons, and built into the UI should not be resized or otherwise affected.

These steps will require that you have root access on your G1.

1. Download the DeJaVu fonts here. They are freely licensed (no copyright).
2. Copy ‘DejaVuSans.ttf’ to your sdcard and rename it exactly ‘DroidSansFallback.ttf’.
3. Start Terminal Emulator and type exactly (watch the Case) the following commands, followed by enter:

su (then wait for the superuser screen and press yes)
mount -o rw,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system
chmod 4755 /system/fonts/DroidSansFallback.ttf
dd if=/sdcard/DroidSansFallback.ttf of=/system/fonts/DroidSansFallback.ttf
reboot

Your phone will now reboot, and voila! Your phone will now display non-English language fonts correctly. No more white boxes!

Note: If the dejavu fonts don’t support your language, just find a font that does, and follow the exact same procedure.

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