Most Android devices, such as those you might purchase from sites like o2.co.uk, are automatically set to display English. However, this can be a problem if the majority of text which you view on such devices is likely to be written in another language. Fortunately, it is a relatively straightforward process if you wish to add additional language fonts.
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 Android phone.
- Download the DeJaVu fonts here. They are freely licensed (no copyright).
- Copy ‘DejaVuSans.ttf’ to your sdcard and rename it exactly ‘DroidSansFallback.ttf’.
- 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.
Kannada(& Indian Languages) doesn’t render correctly.
ಕನ್ನಡ is rendered as ಕನ್ ನಡ
galphs not correct
This is great! I love languages and was really annoyed that there were so many characters I couldn’t see on the Android. I had been searching on and off forever before I finally found this page. Thanks! It’s not quite perfect though: Arabic lettering is displayed from left-to-right instead of the expected right-to-left. Is there an easy way to fix this?
Can we create an application to install a font ?
how to develope android apps using other than english. means giving UI other than english
when i type su in terminal window su 10014 not allowed to su error is coming. pls solve this
I have tried to install it as the instructions say, but it either says it cannot read the file or read error is a directory
Any help?
Thanks
Thanks much. It works fine for adding Greek (which is what I was after), but breaks CJK, which I didn’t expect.
I did this with the DejaVu font with good results to get certain Bible programs to correctly display Hebrew and Greek.
It might be good to add one more line just before the “reboot”:
chmod 0644 /system/fonts/DroidSansFallback.ttf
This would return the permissions on the file to their original, and probably more secure, state.
Is there any requirement for installing type fonts that’s supports my language.
Thank you