Android Tutorial

By : Ketan Bhimani

266 

Some typefaces and typeface styles available on Android.

Using Custom Typefaces

You can easily use custom typefaces with

your application by including the font file

as an application asset and loading it on

demand. Fonts might be used for a

custom look-and feel, for implementing

language symbols that are not supported

natively, or for custom symbols.

For example, you might want to use a

handy chess font to implement a simple,

scalable chess game. A chess font includes

every symbol needed to implement a

chessboard, including the board and the

pieces. Hans Bodlaender has kindly provided a free chess font

called Chess Utrecht. Using the Chess Utrecht font, the letter Q

draws a black queen on a white square, whereas a q draws a white

queen on a white square, and so on.

To use a custom font, such as Chess Utrecht, simply download the

font from the website and copy the chess1.ttf file from your hard

drive to the project directory /assets/fonts/chess1.ttf. Now you can

load the Typeface object programmatically much as you would any

resource:

import android.graphics.Typeface;
import android.graphics.Color;
import android.graphics.Paint;
...
Paint mPaint = new Paint(Paint.ANTI_ALIAS_FLAG);
Typeface mType =
Typeface.createFromAsset(getContext().getAssets(),
“fonts/chess1.ttf”);