Adding custom Font to Theme in Android

Unfortunately, Android doesn’t provide the quick, easy and clean way you’re looking for to change the font for your entire app. But recently I’ve looked into this matter and created some tools that allow you to change the font without any coding (you can do it all through xml, styles and even text appearances). They’re based on similar solutions like you see in the other answers here, but allow for far more flexibility. You can read all about it on this blog, and see the github project here.

Here’s an example of how to apply these tools. Put all your font files in assets/fonts/. Then, declare those fonts in an xml file (e.g. res/xml/fonts.xml) and load this file early in your app with TypefaceManager.initialize(this, R.xml.fonts); (e.g., in the onCreate of your Application class). The xml file looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<familyset>

    <!-- Some Font. Can be referenced with 'someFont' or 'aspergit' -->
    <family>
        <nameset>
            <name>aspergit</name>
            <name>someFont</name>
        </nameset>
        <fileset>
            <file>Aspergit.ttf</file>
            <file>Aspergit Bold.ttf</file>
            <file>Aspergit Italic.ttf</file>
            <file>Aspergit Bold Italic.ttf</file>
        </fileset>
    </family>

    <!-- Another Font. Can be referenced with 'anotherFont' or 'bodoni' -->
    <family>
        <nameset>
            <name>bodoni</name>
            <name>anotherFont</name>
        </nameset>
        <fileset>
            <file>BodoniFLF-Roman.ttf</file>
            <file>BodoniFLF-Bold.ttf</file>
        </fileset>
    </family>

</familyset>

Now you can use these fonts in your style or xml (provided you use the tools I mentioned above), by setting the flFont attribute in the custom TextView com.innovattic.font.FontTextView in your xml layout. Below you can see how you can apply a font to all texts in your entire app, just by editing res/values/styles.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools">

    <!-- Application theme -->
    <!-- Use a different parent if you don't want Holo Light -->
    <style name="AppTheme" parent="android:Theme.Holo.Light.DarkActionBar">
        <item name="android:textViewStyle">@style/MyTextViewStyle</item>
    </style>

    <!-- Style to use for ALL text views (including FontTextView) -->
    <!-- Use a different parent if you don't want Holo Light -->
    <style name="MyTextViewStyle" parent="@android:style/Widget.Holo.Light.TextView">
        <item name="android:textAppearance">@style/MyTextAppearance</item>
    </style>

    <!-- Text appearance to use for ALL text views (including FontTextView) -->
    <!-- Use a different parent if you don't want Holo Light -->
    <style name="MyTextAppearance" parent="@android:style/TextAppearance.Holo">
        <!-- Alternatively, reference this font with the name "aspergit" -->
        <!-- Note that only our own TextView's will use the font attribute -->
        <item name="flFont">someFont</item>
        <item name="android:textStyle">bold|italic</item>
    </style>

    <!-- Alternative style, maybe for some other widget -->
    <style name="StylishFont">
        <item name="flFont">anotherFont</item>
        <item name="android:textStyle">normal</item>
    </style>

</resources>

With the accompanying res/layout/layout.xml:

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    tools:context=".MainActivity" >

    <!-- This text view is styled with the app theme -->
    <com.innovattic.font.FontTextView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="This uses my font in bold italic style" />

    <!-- This text view is styled here and overrides the app theme -->
    <com.innovattic.font.FontTextView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        app:flFont="anotherFont"
        android:textStyle="normal"
        android:text="This uses another font in normal style" />

    <!-- This text view is styled with a style and overrides the app theme -->
    <com.innovattic.font.FontTextView
        style="@style/StylishFont"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="This also uses another font in normal style" />

</LinearLayout>

Don’t forget to apply the theme in your Android manifest.