Using fonts that aren't on iPhone

Question

I'd like to use some fonts that aren't part of the iPhone OS. I've seen games that use non standard fonts. I can install the fonts, create images for each one in Photoshop and then use those images in the iPhone app. However, I don't think that is a practical way to go. If the color or tint needs to be adjusted (because of background) or size, I'll have to redesign every font I'm using. Is there a better way to do this?

I read this http://stackoverflow.com/questions/360751/can-i-embed-a-custom-font-in-an-iphone-application and downloaded the open source font label app. However, it crashes most of the time when I try using particular fonts. In regards to the last comment about using UIFont with the fontWithName:size, that certainly doesn't work. Your font variable will be nil. Listing all available fonts reveals why - none of the custom fonts are in the list.

I've also read http://stackoverflow.com/questions/566054/how-do-i-include-a-font-with-my-iphone-application, which definitely does not work. Same as last comment in above link.

Answer 1

I believe the iPhone supports SVG graphics. SVG supports font embedding.

Answer 2

This sadly is not an immediate answer, but it seems that in the future, you will be able to include custom fonts as part of your app:

UIAppFonts (Array - iPhone OS) specifies any application-provided fonts that should be made available through the normal mechanisms. Each item in the array is a string containing the name of a font file (including filename extension) that is located in the application’s bundle. The system loads the specified fonts and makes them available for use by the application when that application is run.

Unfortunately, this works only in iPhone OS 3.2, which is the iPad specific version. It does seem very likely that this feature will be available in future iPhone OS releases.

Link: http://developer.apple.com/iPhone/library/documentation/General/Reference/InfoPlistKeyReference/Articles/iPhoneOSKeys.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40009252-SW18

(this was the only public documentation I could find on Apple's site)

Answer 3

The correct answer is to use FontLabel, which can be found on GitHub. http://github.com/zynga/FontLabel

I've used that code in several real-world project and it's absolutely fantastic.

Answer 4

I've downloaded and implemented FontLabel on my app which seems to work well. However I'm needing to include the ability to use it in a tableview with a viewWithTag. Any ideas on how to modify FontLabel to include this functionality? Sorry, newbie developer so any help most appreciated. Thanks!