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I have a textView that can display a Text in any languages ( End-users input the text).

I am wondering that what font I should use?

In this article: http://www.google.com/design/spec/style/typography.html#typography-roboto-noto

Google says:

To support all languages worldwide, Google recommends using Roboto for languages that use the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts and Noto for all other languages.

If I understand it correctly. There is no single font file (Roboto|Noto) can support all languages.

Anyone know what font I can use? Should default font (Android decides) be a choice?

Thanks!

LHA
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2 Answers2

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Android already does this for you. Read the paragraph before that cited paragraph:

Since the Ice Cream Sandwich release, Roboto has been the standard typeface on Android. Since Froyo, Noto has been the standard typeface on Android for all languages not covered by Roboto.

So don't change the font/typeface used and you will be fine.

Remember that, that design site is not only for android, but also for the web, Chrome os etc as well for Google's unified/cross platform design, hence the wording.

Mattias Isegran Bergander
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  • So you mean: An textView can display a text in any languages - Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, other languages (Entered by end-users) by default? Does this work in all Android devices (Anroid 4+) of all manufactures? – LHA Dec 12 '14 at 21:32
  • "Any" and "all" are strong words :) No promises. But yes, within any limits of those fonts, yes it should and usually does. – Mattias Isegran Bergander Dec 15 '14 at 12:44
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If you are interested in trying different fonts than Roboto or Noto, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode_font#List_of_Unicode_fonts displays a list of some fonts along with a number for each category/language on characters it supports. The "GNU Unifont" font appears to be a good choice.

mbomb007
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