Changing fonts

The iPhone allows you to select from three default fonts: Noteworthy, Helvetica and Marker Felt for programs like Mail and Notes. I will cover two methods of changing fonts in this tutorial: using a program on Cydia called BytaFont, and manually swapping them out using OpenSSH. I found a great collection of iPhone fonts at iPhone Ruler.net

Attention

I will be using YummyFTP to upload the files in this tutorial. These instructions can be applied to any files you want to add to your iPhone, provided you already have SSH installed. If you have not installed OpenSSH, or used YummyFTP before, then you must read this tutorial first.

Method 1.

There's a program on Cydia that make changing fonts push button simple - BytaFont. You install the program, browse for the font you want and install it. The thing that I like is that fonts you install can change what the text looks like system wide. It will install an icon on your springboard.






Press the Browse fonts button and you can search all the fonts available. After you've selected one and installed it the springboard will respring. This is the Neuropol font.




If you go to the advanced tab you can change fonts on specific parts of the iPhone instead of system wide.

Method 2.

Another way to change fonts is by using OpenSSH. I have found that if you change the Helvetica, and Helvetica Bold fonts with a customized font, it has the single greatest impact on the look of the iPhone. However, beginning with 4.0 firmware Apple has decided to use the .ttc extension on some fonts (like Helvetica) thus complicating the issue of swapping out fonts easily. Put simply, .ttc is a True Type Collection - a file consisting of several fonts packed into it. In order to change Helvetica, you'd need to decompress the .ttc, switch out the font you want to change and then repack all the fonts together as a .ttc. There is a Mac program called FontLab Studio, which sells for a mere $650 which simplifies this. I won't be covering how to manipulate .ttc files until someone can simplify it for us. If you'd like to read more about this, check out this discussion over at MacThemes.net here.

Once you have the font you want to install, launch YummyFTP and navigate to /System/Library/Fonts/Cache. I renamed the _H_MarkerFeltThin.ttf file to _H_MarkerFeltThin ORIGINAL.ttf so I could switch it back if I wanted to.




Rename your replacement file to the correct font name then copy it over to the iPhone.





You will then need to respring your iPhone for the changes to take effect. SBSettings has a respring feature built in.




Here's my before and after. This font is called Walt Disney and is available on the iPhone Ruler.net website.