Extract Helvetica from SwiftKey
For those who really want Helvetica for either their phone or desktop the font is actually packaged within all SwiftKey releases. It requires a bit of fiddling but this tutorial will show you how to extract Helvetica Neue and apply it as default font for your phone without using a computer. I will not provide the flashable package for you as that would be distributing a proprietary font.
There are easier ways to do this by using adb commands but if you know how to use these you should be able to do this purely with the knowledge that Helvetica is included in the APK.
To do this you will need;
- SwiftKey (In this example I use SwiftKey X Trial)
- Astro File manager
- ES File Explorer
- A flashable font package
Step 1.
Download this (or any other) flashable font package. (Note this uses the updater-script, not edify).
Place it in a folder of your choice on your sdcard. I used “/mnt/sdcard/Fonts/”
Step 2.
Download Swiftkey (I used SwiftKey X, but if you already have a different version you should be able to use that)
In ES File Explorer backup SwiftKey.
- Menu → Manager → App Manager
- Long-press Swiftkey and select “Backup”
Step 3.
In Astro navigate to “/mnt/sdcard/backups/apps/”
Select SwiftKey and press “Browse File”
Step 4.
In “/assets/fonts/” multi select HelveticaNeue_Bold and HelveticaNeue_Regular.
Select “Copy” from the top bar.
Step 5.
In Astro, navigate to the file you downloaded in step one (“/mnt/sdcard/Fonts/”)
Paste the fonts in this folder.
Step 6.
Create a copy of HelveticaNeue_Bold and name it Clockopia.
Rename HelveticaNeue_Bold and HelveticaNeue_Regular to DroidSans-Bold and DroidSans respectively.
Multi-select these three fonts and copy them.
Step 6b. If you have Root Explorer or ES File Manager with root access you can copy and paste the fonts directly into /system/fonts/. On HTC phones you will need to be S-Off-ed.
Step 7.
Open the font package in Astro. Navigate to /system/fonts/ within the zip package.
Paste and overwrite the files in the package.
Step 8.
Flash the modified zip through recover and enjoy Helvetica on your phone.
Thanks for the tip Gas. After I followed these stepd (used root explorer) Oxygen wouldn’t boot no more. Had to wipe cache/dalvik and flash Oxygen again…
It might be safer to replace the fonts in the Oxygen package (on the computer) and then flash the entire Tom with Helvetica included.
Gas
Will try. Tx!
I don’t know German; therefore, I fail to unsdretand the criteria to choose these type faces. Why wasn’t Courier among them?Actually, I didn’t find any monospace font among these hundred faces. I didn’t check them all, neither am I an expert on the matter.I strange the lack of Courier because of its impact on society. For many years, I’ve been used to see Courier face on official documents, in Portugal. I even got a CESAR layout typewriter in middle nineties, as my folks were too poor to offer me a computer, and it typed in Courier face.Now that I’m a computation student (oh, the irony), I look very carefully at monospaced fonts and their basic properties, such as proportion, and readability.I’d like to learn more about typefaces. Pedro Serre3o, would you, please, add more detail on this article?No wonder Helvetica has won. It’s modern, slick, detailedb9, and readable. It’s a powerful font.b9 by comparison with Arial, its inferior imitation.
It worked. Thansk again
Thanks for this tip.
Thanks for this! I ended up just pulling the fonts out and applying the regular version via FontChanger.
In Swiftkey X 2.0.5.120 there is only 3 fonts, DroidSans, DroidSans-Bold and DroidSans-Italic