Can I embed a custom font in an iPhone application?

Question

I would like to have an app include a custom font for rendering text, load it, and then use it with standard UIKit elements like UILabel. Is this possible?

I found these links:

• http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8304744
• http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=569311

but these would require me to render each glyph myself, which is a bit too much like hard work, especially for multi-line text.

I've also found posts that say straight out that it's not possible, but without justification, so I'm looking for a definitive answer.

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EDIT - failed -[UIFont fontWithName:size:] experiment

I downloaded Harrowprint.tff (downloaded from here) and added it to my Resources directory and to the project. I then tried this code:

UIFont* font = [UIFont fontWithName:@"Harrowprint" size:20];

which resulted in an exception being thrown. Looking at the TTF file in Finder confirmed that the font name was Harrowprint.

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EDIT - there have been a number of replies so far which tell me to read the documentation on X or Y. I've experimented extensively with all of these, and got nowhere. In one case, X turned out to be relevant only on OS X, not on iPhone. Consequently I am setting a bounty for this question, and I will award the bounty to the first person who provides an answer (using only documented APIs) who responds with sufficient information to get this working on the device. Working on the simulator too would be a bonus.

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EDIT - it appears that the bounty auto-awards to the answer with the highest nunber of votes. Interesting. No one actually provided an answer that solved the question as asked - the solution that involves coding your own UILabel subclass doesn't support word-wrap, which is an essential feature for me - though I guess I could extend it to do so.

Answer 1

Yes, you can include custom fonts. Refer to the documentation on UIFont, specifically, the fontWithName:size: method.

1) Make sure you include the font in your resources folder.

2) The "name" of the font is not necessarily the filename.

3) Make sure you have the legal right to use that font. By including it in your app, you're also distributing it, and you need to have the right to do that.

Answer 2

I have done this like this:

Load the font:

- (void)loadFont{
  // Get the path to our custom font and create a data provider.
  NSString *fontPath = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"mycustomfont" ofType:@"ttf"]; 
  CGDataProviderRef fontDataProvider = CGDataProviderCreateWithFilename([fontPath UTF8String]);

  // Create the font with the data provider, then release the data provider.
  customFont = CGFontCreateWithDataProvider(fontDataProvider);
  CGDataProviderRelease(fontDataProvider); 
}

Now, in your drawRect:, do something like this:

-(void)drawRect:(CGRect)rect{
    [super drawRect:rect];
    // Get the context.
    CGContextRef context = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext();
    CGContextClearRect(context, rect);
    // Set the customFont to be the font used to draw.
    CGContextSetFont(context, customFont);

    // Set how the context draws the font, what color, how big.
    CGContextSetTextDrawingMode(context, kCGTextFillStroke);
    CGContextSetFillColorWithColor(context, self.fontColor.CGColor);
    UIColor * strokeColor = [UIColor blackColor];
    CGContextSetStrokeColorWithColor(context, strokeColor.CGColor);
    CGContextSetFontSize(context, 48.0f);

    // Create an array of Glyph's the size of text that will be drawn.
    CGGlyph textToPrint[[self.theText length]];

    // Loop through the entire length of the text.
    for (int i = 0; i < [self.theText length]; ++i) {
        // Store each letter in a Glyph and subtract the MagicNumber to get appropriate value.
        textToPrint[i] = [[self.theText uppercaseString] characterAtIndex:i] + 3 - 32;
    }
    CGAffineTransform textTransform = CGAffineTransformMake(1.0, 0.0, 0.0, -1.0, 0.0, 0.0);
    CGContextSetTextMatrix(context, textTransform);
    CGContextShowGlyphsAtPoint(context, 20, 50, textToPrint, [self.theText length]);
}

Basically you have to do some brute force looping through the text and futzing about with the magic number to find your offset (here, see me using 29) in the font, but it works.

Also, you have to make sure the font is legally embeddable. Most aren't and there are lawyers who specialize in this sort of thing, so be warned.

Answer 3

Look up ATSApplicationFontsPath

A simple plist entry that allows you to include the font file(s) in your app resources folder and they "just work" in your app.

Answer 4

It's not out yet, but the next version of cocos2d (2d game framework) will support variable length bitmap fonts as character maps.

http://code.google.com/p/cocos2d-iphone/issues/detail?id=317

The author doesn't have a nailed down release date for this version, but I did see a posting that indicated it would be in the next month or two.

Answer 5

I created a simple module that extends UILabel and handles loading .ttf files. I released it opensource under the Apache license and put it on github here: git://github.com/zynga/FontLabel.git

The important files are FontLabel.h and FontLabel.m.

It uses some of the code from Genericrich's answer above.

Browse the source here: http://github.com/zynga/FontLabel/tree/master

Answer 6

The only way I've been able to successfully load custom UIFonts is via the private GraphicsServices framework.

The following will load all the .ttf fonts in the application's main bundle:

BOOL GSFontAddFromFile(const char * path);
NSUInteger loadFonts()
{
 NSUInteger newFontCount = 0;
 for (NSString *fontFile in [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathsForResourcesOfType:@"ttf" inDirectory:nil])
  newFontCount += GSFontAddFromFile([fontFile UTF8String]);
 return newFontCount;
}

Once fonts are loaded, they can be used just like the Apple-provided fonts:

NSLog(@"Available Font Families: %@", [UIFont familyNames]);
[label setFont:[UIFont fontWithName:@"Consolas" size:20.0f]];

GraphicsServices can even be loaded at runtime in case the API disappears in the future:

#import <dlfcn.h>
NSUInteger loadFonts()
{
 NSUInteger newFontCount = 0;
 NSBundle *frameworkBundle = [NSBundle bundleWithIdentifier:@"com.apple.GraphicsServices"];
 const char *frameworkPath = [[frameworkBundle executablePath] UTF8String];
 if (frameworkPath) {
  void *graphicsServices = dlopen(frameworkPath, RTLD_NOLOAD | RTLD_LAZY);
  if (graphicsServices) {
   BOOL (*GSFontAddFromFile)(const char *) = dlsym(graphicsServices, "GSFontAddFromFile");
   if (GSFontAddFromFile)
    for (NSString *fontFile in [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathsForResourcesOfType:@"ttf" inDirectory:nil])
     newFontCount += GSFontAddFromFile([fontFile UTF8String]);
  }
 }
 return newFontCount;
}

Answer 7

Maybe the author forgot to give the font a Mac FOND name?

1. Open the font in FontForge then go to Element>Font Info
2. There is a "Mac" Option where you can set the FOND name.
3. Under File>Export Font you can create a new ttf

You could also give the "Apple" option in the export dialog a try.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not a IPhone developer!

Answer 8

I have been trying out the various suggestions on this page on Iphone OS 3.1.2 and these are my conclusions:

Simply using [UIFont fontWithName:size:] with the fonts in the Resources directory will not work, even if the FOND name is set using FontForge.

[UIFont fontWithName:size:] will work if the fonts are loaded first using GSFontAddFromFile. But GSFontAddFromFile is not part of Iphone OS 3.1.2 so it has to be dynamically loaded as described by rpetrich.

Answer 9

Here is another variable-length font system for iPhone: http://ambiguiti.es/2009/05/easyglyph-an-iphone-font-system/

Answer 10

iPhone 3.2 supports it, although it's iPad only
From the What's New in iPhone OS 3.2 doc:

Custom Font Support
Applications that want to use custom fonts can now include those fonts in their application bundle and register those fonts with the system by including the UIAppFonts key in their Info.plist file. The value of this key is an array of strings identifying the font files in the application’s bundle. When the system sees the key, it loads the specified fonts and makes them available to the application.

Once the fonts have been set in the Info.plist, you can use your custom fonts as any other font in IB or programatically.

There is an ongoing thread on Apple Developer Forums:
https://devforums.apple.com/thread/37824 (login required)

EDIT: Obviously, iOS 4 supports this as well.

Answer 11

I tried the dynamic things, and it works like a charm. Even on device.

Blockquote Another note -- this is a private framework, and dynamically loads it... both of which will likely stop the acceptance of your app into the AppStore. – pixel Dec 1 '09 at 22:05

extern void * dlsym(void * __handle, const char * __symbol) is really a private Methode?

Second question: Is there someone who posted on AppleDStore? And have return about this?

Seems like the use will be available with 0S4 since you can already doing this with 3.2 (Ipad) with the .plist methode (i don't remember wich plist-name but it tried and work fine, but i'm workin on pod :S)

Answer 12

There is a simple way to use custom fonts in iOS 4.

1. Add your font file (for example, Chalkduster.ttf) to Resources folder of the project in XCode.
2. Open info.plist and add a new key called UIAppFonts. The type of this key should be array.
3. Add your custom font name to this array including extension ("Chalkduster.ttf").
4. Now you can use [UIFont fontWithName:@"Chalkduster" size:16] in your application.

Unfortunately, IB doesn't allow to initialize labels with custom fonts. See this question to solve this problem. My favorite solution is to use custom UILabel subclass:

@implementation CustomFontLabel

- (id)initWithCoder:(NSCoder *)decoder
{
    if (self = [super initWithCoder: decoder])
    {
        [self setFont: [UIFont fontWithName: @"Chalkduster" size: self.font.pointSize]];
    }
    return self;
}

@end