I’m having trouble with certain fonts being a bit “jagged” and distorted on Android (always looks perfect on iOS). Are there any “safe” fonts that most likely will be displayed nicely on both platforms?
I’ve had trouble getting some ttf fonts to work on certain devices myself. Sticking them through the font-face converter at everythingfonts.com and taking the ttf back out of the pack it generates seems to work. Presumably it strips certain crud out as part of the process and the simplified files just work.
Thanks! Just tried with some Google fonts and the six I tried looked perfect and identical on both platforms. Maybe those fonts are more “correct” than the ones you download at dafont.com etc…?
Quick primer on fonts. Fonts come from businesses called foundries or they could be hand made by someone on the Internet. Some of the big font foundries include Adobe, BTS (Bitstream), Microsoft, Apple, and others that are slipping my mind. Commercial foundries test the fonts intensely, tend to include a full set of glyphs, and all of the metic information in the font file is correct. Generally you have to have a license for these. Microsoft makes a lot of their fonts available (like Arial). Apple makes many of their fonts available too (Helvetica Neue, Myrdid Pro, etc). But those are not necessarily cross platform. For instance you won’t find Helvetica-Neue on Windows and likely not on Android. Google has some along and put a lot of effort into their fonts and makes them freely available.
But if you go onto a site like dafont.com, fontsquirrel.com, etc. a lot of their free fonts (and be careful, many are free for personal use, not commercial use, and if you’re making any money on your app – selling it, IAP, showing ads, etc. you’re commercial) are made by people who don’t test them very well. They may be missing glyphs. Their metrics could be all over the place and as free fonts get moved around and around, the files can become corrupted and may not work everywhere.
Richard’s advice to run them through an online font converter can fix some of the problems with the indie fonts so you should at least try that. If you’re font still doesn’t behave right, find a different font.
Rob
I’ve had trouble getting some ttf fonts to work on certain devices myself. Sticking them through the font-face converter at everythingfonts.com and taking the ttf back out of the pack it generates seems to work. Presumably it strips certain crud out as part of the process and the simplified files just work.
Thanks! Just tried with some Google fonts and the six I tried looked perfect and identical on both platforms. Maybe those fonts are more “correct” than the ones you download at dafont.com etc…?
Quick primer on fonts. Fonts come from businesses called foundries or they could be hand made by someone on the Internet. Some of the big font foundries include Adobe, BTS (Bitstream), Microsoft, Apple, and others that are slipping my mind. Commercial foundries test the fonts intensely, tend to include a full set of glyphs, and all of the metic information in the font file is correct. Generally you have to have a license for these. Microsoft makes a lot of their fonts available (like Arial). Apple makes many of their fonts available too (Helvetica Neue, Myrdid Pro, etc). But those are not necessarily cross platform. For instance you won’t find Helvetica-Neue on Windows and likely not on Android. Google has some along and put a lot of effort into their fonts and makes them freely available.
But if you go onto a site like dafont.com, fontsquirrel.com, etc. a lot of their free fonts (and be careful, many are free for personal use, not commercial use, and if you’re making any money on your app – selling it, IAP, showing ads, etc. you’re commercial) are made by people who don’t test them very well. They may be missing glyphs. Their metrics could be all over the place and as free fonts get moved around and around, the files can become corrupted and may not work everywhere.
Richard’s advice to run them through an online font converter can fix some of the problems with the indie fonts so you should at least try that. If you’re font still doesn’t behave right, find a different font.
Rob