One thing that Symbian desperately needs is the ability for users to easily manage fonts. I’ve recently reviewed a few Samsung feature phones and all three had the option to choose from 3 different fonts already installed in the phone. Since Symbian is a smartphone operating system, it surely can’t be that difficult to add this feature, can it? The good news is that no, it’s not.
To manage the fonts that your phone uses, you’ll need two applications. The first, FontRouter LT, will need to be signed. You can either use OpenSigned to do this, or use our walkthrough of how to sign unsigned apps for your Symbian-powered smartphone. The second app, FontRouterMan, is already signed, and provides an interface to the changes that FontRouter LT makes to your system. Once you have installed both applications to the internal memory on your phone, you can then install fonts easily. I have tested both applications on the Nokia N79, E63, and 5800 XpressMusic, so you shouldn’t have any trouble installing and using them on your phone.
You can use any .ttf font on your Symbian-powered smartphone, but make sure that the extension is ‘.ttf’ and not ‘.TTF’. Apparently, there is a difference, as I discovered. You can get free fonts here, and then simply use any file manager (including the built-in one) to put the font files in C:/data/Fonts on your phone.
Now, open FontRouterMan, and press Options, Open Installed Fonts. Choose the C:/ drive, and you’ll be presented with a list of available fonts. Simply choose the one you would like to use, then press ‘Exit’, and reboot your phone. You will now see the font used in place of the default system font!
FontRouterMan also allows you to fine-tune the font with various settings. Each time you adjust these settings, you’ll need to exit FontRouterMan and then reboot your phone to see the changes. Obviously, this can be a big hassle, but unfortunately, there is no way to preview how a font adjustment will look on your phone. You can also set FontRouterMan to ‘disabled’ to revert to the system default. Here’s a quick guide as to what each setting does:
ZoomRatio – Adjusts the overall size of the font throughout the system.
Chroma - Related to anti-aliased fonts
FontStyle - Allows you to choose from normal, italics, bold, or bold and italics
Y Adjust – Changes how tall the characters are
CharGapAdj – Adjusts the gap between characters in words
LineGapAdj - Adjusts the line spacing
GDR Support - Support for GDR fonts
BitmapType - Changes how the font is rendered on your phone
FontMetrics - Changes how the font is rendered on your phone
CharMetrics - Changes how the individual characters are rendered on your phone
LogLevel - Adjusts the level of information stored in the log
ZoomMaxSize - Adjusts the maximum zoom
ZoomMinSize - Adjusts the minimum zoom
Have you changed the fonts on your phone? Share a screenshot to show off your font, and let us know where to download it at! I’m anxious to see the various fun fonts that everyone chooses!
