this new discovery gives me reason to prepare and release the next version of FontSwap which will happen later this week.

Screenshot:

please ignore the backspace button for now. i just had to try a quick port and test, so did not really care about it. custom font authors will need to take care of this as this font has different glyphs from the usual system font so just a font rename is not going to work.

cheers.

i hope this goes down well with you guys.. especially users who complain abut the complicated process of installing custom fonts.. this will make it easier..

there are font categories for which the app works as seen in the screens above
fonts have to be put in packages to be identified by the application.
FontName.font
I will add facility to read and display font information like, author, preview, etc in a third section.. could only manage to finish two TableViews to get a feel of the Objective-C language. this works for now so i’ll release it soon..

Download: Neo Dialer for iPhone 2.x.x (1743)
[refer to readme.txt for installation steps]

you might also wanna use this custom font which changes the font of the dialed number to NeoTech, completes the theme.

Download: NeoTech Dialer font for iPhone 2.x.x (1080)
[refer to readme.txt for installation steps]

theme is also available on Cydia

Download: Matrix Code Custom Clock Font iPhone 2.0.x (1680)
[refer to readme.txt for installation steps]

get the full Matrix Code font here
http://www.dafont.com/font.php?file=matrix_code_nfi

Download: Myriad Pro Custom Font for iPhone 2.0.x (3230)
[refer to readme.txt for installation steps]

Download: Myriad Pro Custom Font for iPhone 2.0.x (3230)
[refer to readme.txt for installation steps]

Download: Calibri Font for MobileNotes iPhone 2.0.x (1630)
[refer to readme.txt for installation steps]

Download: Calibri Font for MobileNotes iPhone 2.0.x (1630)
[refer to readme.txt for installation steps]

Advantages of adding extra fonts:

• Set your SpringBoard icon labels to the font of your choice [through WinterBoard]
• Get extended font support for viewing websites in Safari
• Get extended font support in applications, either as a user or a developer

For this tutorial I will add the Calibri font family to my iPhone, the following fonts of this family should be available on your computer by default

• Calibri
• Calibri Italic
• Calibri Bold
• Calibri Bold Italic

[i'm doing this on a Windows Vista system, if you're not using Vista some steps for obtaining the fonts may be different]

Terms for this tutorial:
Font Family is the font class, a font family may have many similar fonts, these fonts have different names and slightly different styles. eg Arial, Helvetica, Calibri are font families
Font Name is the name given to a font eg. Calibri, Calibri Bold, Calibri Italic are fonts in the Calibri font family
Font File Name is the filename for the font file. eg. Calibri.ttf, CalibriBold.ttf
Note: changing the filename for a Font File *does not* change the Font Name for that file. i’ve seen many people tryin to get fonts to work by renaming the files. it simply won’t work because no matter how many times you change the filename, the metadata contained in the file remains the same. a Helvetica font is a Helvetica font whether it’s named Helvetica.ttf or Calibri.ttf

Copy the fonts:

• 1. Start > Run, or WinKey + R
• 2. Type fonts in the Run window that opens
• 3. Hit Enter
• 4. This will open the Fonts folder. alternatively you can open it through My Computer C:/Windows/Fonts/ [where C:/ is your windows drive]
• 5. Make a new folder Calibri on your Desktop
• 6. Find the Calibri fonts in the Fonts folder and select and drag them to the Calibri folder, or use copy/paste.
• 7. The fonts will have these file names
• Calibri: calibri.ttf
• Calibri Bold: calibrib.ttf
• Calibri Italic: calibrii.ttf
• Calibri Bold Italic: calibriz.ttf
• 8. Rename the font files to these names
• Calibri: Calibri.ttf
• Calibri Bold: CalibriBold.ttf
• Calibri Italic: CalibriItalic.ttf
• Calibri Bold Italic: CalibriBoldItalic.ttf

I prefer not to have spaces in the filenames that i’m going to put on my iPhone.

Install fonts on iPhone

• 1. Connect to your iPhone using WinSCP or Fugu via it’s IP address. username: root, password: alpine
• 2. Navigate to this folder /System/Library/Fonts/Cache/
• 3. Create a new folder MyFonts in the Cache folder

we’ll copy our new fonts in this folder so that they are easily identifiable and properly organized.

• 4. Copy the four files for Calibri font to the MyFonts folder
• 5. Navigate to the folder /System/Lobrary/Fonts/
• 6. Copy the file CGFontCache.plist to your desktop and use this link to convert it to plain xml format. http://140.124.181.188/~khchung/cgi-bin/plutil.cgi
• 7. Open the converted CGFontCache.plist file with your favorite text editor.
• 8. There are two sections in this file you need to edit Names and TraitMappings
• Names is an array which has key value pairs of the Font Name and the Font file name.

it has the following syntax

<key>Font Name</key>
<string>Full Path to Font File</string>

in this section add these lines at the start

<key>Calibri</key>
<string>/System/Library/Fonts/Cache/MyFonts/Calibri.ttf</string>
<key>Calibri Bold</key>
<string>/System/Library/Fonts/Cache/MyFonts/CalibriBold.ttf</string>
<key>Calibri Italic</key>
<string>/System/Library/Fonts/Cache/MyFonts/CalibriItalic.ttf</string>
<key>Calibri Bold Italic</key>
<string>/System/Library/Fonts/Cache/MyFonts/CalibriBoldItalic.ttf</string>

• TraitMappings is an array which maps the various font styles to fonts of a font family.

it has the following syntax

<key>Font Family Name</key>
<dict>
	<key>Plain</key>
	<string>Font Name</string>
	<key>Bold</key>
	<string>Font Name</string>
	<key>Italic</key>
	<string>Font Name</string>
	<key>Bold-Italic</key>
	<string>Font Name</string>
</dict>

Note: the four elements are fixed, you can not use any other values for these, they must be Plain, Bold, Italic, Bold-Italic. The font name will vary from font to font. If you don’t have a particular font for a font family simply exclude the respective lines from it’s entry, ie if you only have Plain and Bold fonts use only the Plain and Bold <key>,<string> pairs and exclude the Italic and Bold-Italic pairs.

in this section add these lines at the start

<key>Calibri</key>
<dict>
	<key>Plain</key>
	<string>Calibri</string>
	<key>Bold</key>
	<string>Calibri Bold</string>
	<key>Italic</key>
	<string>Calibri Italic</string>
	<key>Bold-Italic</key>
	<string>Calibri Bold Italic</string>
</dict>

• 9. Respring/Reboot your iPhone to load the new fonts and test them.
• 10. Result

the HTML page

<html>
<head>
	<title>Calibri Test</title>

	<style>
		#calibri	{
			font-family: calibri;
			font-style: normal;
		}
		#calibrii	{
			font-family: calibri;
			font-style: italic;
		}
		#calibrib	{
			font-family: calibri;
			font-weight: bold;
		}
		#calibriib	{
			font-family: calibri;
			font-style: italic;
			font-weight: bold;
		}
	</style>
</head>
<body>
<div id=calibri>Calibri</div>
<div id=calibrib>Calibri Bold</div>
<div id=calibrii>Calibri Italic</div>
<div id=calibriib>Calibri Bold Italic</div>
</body>
</html>

is rendered like this in MobileSafari
Before:


After:

i hope you find this tutorial useful….

Terms for this tutorial:
default font is the unmodified font that is present on your iPhone
custom font is the font that you are going to port for your iPhone
ported font is the result of the process that will be placed on your iPhone

Let’s see what all we need to begin with the process.. Check list:

• 1. The font you want to port.

If you’re porting the Myriad font to the System [Helvetica] font, make sure you have the files [TTF or PFB/PFM or other] for both the Myriad Regular font and the Myriad Bold font.. if you don’t have the bold font file, you can convert the Regular font to the Bold font with FontLab Studio [using the Transformations panel] but the conversion might not be perfect.

• 2. The font you want to replace on the iPhone.

You will need the default font for some important information like metadata and some glyphs that the custom font may not have. Make a new folder on your desktop “Custom Fonts” for your custom font work and keep the original default fonts in that folder. Keep the custom fonts in folders with their names under this folder, you can export the ported font to the corresponding folder as well.. [this is the convention i follow, you are free to think of something better]
You can copy the default fonts from this folder on your iPhone /System/Library/Fonts/Cache/

• 3. FontLab Studio

http://www.fontlab.com/font-editor/fontlab-studio/
You need the full registered version of FontLab Studio. The demo version will generate only 20 glyphs in a font. FontLab Studio costs $649, although there are a few alternative means of obtaining the software which i will not discuss here [Google is your friend, so are Demonoid and ThePirateBay]..
[you might want to keep FontCreator as a backup software. i tried to open Calibri font with FontLab Studio and it crashed everytime i tried.. FontCreator is not as feature rich but you can export the font and then use it in FontLab Studio.]

• 4. The desire to change things..

First let’s take a look at the metadata of default fonts that may be replaced, these are the ones that are usually replaced, though all of them can be easily replaced..
Helvetica.ttf

HelveticaBold.ttf

LockClock.ttf

MarkerFeltThin.ttf

The screenshots show the metadata that is embedded in the fonts. If you replace a default font with a custom font with incorrect metadata, the iPhone OS will load the font but it will not find the data it is looking for and the application will most likely crash. Incorrect metadata in MarkerFeltThin.ttf will cause MobileNotes to crash, incorrect data in LockClock.ttf will cause SWOD, incorrect metadata in Helvetica.ttf or HelveticaBold.ttf will cause SpringBoard to crash.
So if you make any custom font to replace the default fonts, you must take care to maintain the correct metadata. It is therefore a good idea to start with the default font and to copy glyphs from the custom font over glyphs of the default font, this way you also maintain any extra glyphs the default font has that the custom font doesn’t, so it makes the font more complete.

NOTE: If you’re porting a system font, it is *absolutely essential* that you copy the glyphs from custom font over the default font. Helvetica and HelvetivaBold have around 2135 glyphs, a huge majority of which will not be present in the custom font you’re going to port. Missing glyphs in system font will totally ruin the purpose of porting it.

Important things to do before the actual port:

• 1. Change Metrics and Dimensions of the default fonts.

iPhone default fonts have a UPM size of 2048, which makes working with Metrics & Dimensions a bit of a hassle, setting this value to 1000 makes life simpler. We will also edit some other Metrics & Dimensions here. Set values as shown in the screenshots.
alternatively you can download the default fonts i’ve attached here and use them as templates. they have all the required settings and glyphs. setting vary for the system fonts, notes font and lock clock font. so it’s better to use the templates..
Download: Font Templates for Port (2454)

Steps:
a. Open the default font with FontLab Studio.
b. File > Font Info
c. Metrics & Dimensions

Make sure the checkbox for “Scale all glyphs according to UPM size change” is checked.
d. Metrics & Dimensions > Key Dimensions

e. Metrics & Dimensions > TrueType-specific metrics

f. Metrics & Dimensions > Subscript and Superscript


g. For Helvetica.ttf and HelveticaBold.ttf make sure the glyph uni25CF [black circle] is present in the font. otherwise the password field will show up empty on the iPhone. you can get this glyph from fonts on your system. see here: http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/25cf/fontsupport.htm

h. File > Generate Font
i. Overwrite the default font that you opened for editing. Otherwise use a label in your filenames for default fonts that you’ve modified, so that they’re easy to recognize. We will work only with these modified fonts.
Download: Font Templates for Port (2454)

• 2. Make sure you have a proper folder structure to handle the default fonts and custom fonts. This is important because very soon you’ll have dozens of fonts with the same name.

The port process:

• 1. Open both the default font and the custom font in FontLab Studio.

Arrange font windows by Window > Tile Horizontally.


• 2. Change the UPM size of custom font to 1000.

Glyphs can only be copied between fonts having the same UPM size.
Open Font Info window File > Font Info.


• 3. Select all glyphs of custom font.



• 4. Copy selected glyphs.


Notice that i have deselected the .notdef glyph of custom font as it is blank. We will not copy this blank glyph so that we retain the glyph in the default font.

• 5. Select the default font window and paste glyphs.

Click once in the default font window and paste the copied glyphs using Edit > Paste Special.


• 6. Select layers for Paste Special.
  • a. Outline
  • b. Left sidebearing
  • c. Right sidebearing
  • d. Adv. width
  • e. Left Kerning
  • f. Right Kerning
  • g. Ignore destination selection, map glyphs by name

This is the main step that you need to take care of, these setting have to exactly as shown in the screenshot or you’ll mess up the default font and have to start over again.
These checkboxes must be checked:


All other checkboxes must be unchecked.



Result:


if it’s the system font you’re porting and you’re not using the template i’ve attached here, make sure you copy the glyph uni25CF to the font [using the same paste special settings as above] before going any further.

• 7. Generate the font.

We’ve finished copying the glyphs. Check once for any errors or glitches in the font that you may easily notice by just scanning the glyphs once..
Once certain that the glyphs are okay we can generate the font by File > Generate Font


• 8. Save the ported font.




• Done.

Simply copy the ported font to the fonts folder [/System/Library/Fonts/Cache/] on your iPhone and reboot once for it to take effect.. make sure you keep backup of original fonts in case something goes wrong..

Download: Font Templates for Port (2454)

Download: Calibri Custom Clock Font for iPhone 2.0.x (1334)

no screenshot of the lock screen yet..

get the Calibri system font here
Calibri Custom Font for iPhone 2.0.x

Download: Calibri Custom Font for iPhone 2.0.x (2809)
[refer to readme.txt for installation steps]

Download: Calibri Custom Font for iPhone 2.0.x (2809)
[refer to readme.txt for installation steps]