How To: Changing Fonts in Symbian^3 (very easy, done in a minute) Nokia N8, C6-01, C7

UPDATE 2: Major apologies for those trying this and finding errors. As noted, try at own risk. This already mucks up Ovi Store and prevents it from starting. Also I’ve had problems with Nokia Panorama but that’s been buggy since this morning.

Back in June we asked should Nokia change their icons and fonts. From 496 votes as it stands, 71.98% agreed on both, with 8.47%% only wanting icon change, 7.86 just font change and 11.69% were happy with fonts and icons the way they are (not exactly encouraging).

Well icons change variably with themes and are mostly up to the theme designer (check out screenshots at end of post to see different icon styles). Fonts on the other hand is soo easy to change yourself thanks to this tip from gadgetbuff to mynokiablog.com/tips! That’s great because the Nokia font has been heavily criticized as one of the factors making Nokia phones look a little old. We were exstatic when we saw a different font in Symbian^4 leaked screenshots only to find out they were modified.

“A font says a lot, though quite subtly, and so often overlooked.

The narrow Nokia font made sense in older phones when trying to conserve on pixel usage. But now we’ve got high res screens and can afford wider fonts, narrow, sharp fonts look much less appealing than their plumper, rounder counterparts.

The curviness of “Century Gothic” [Very similar to “Prelude”, used in Palm Pre I think] is often found in children’s books because of the emphasis on classic alphabet shapes and thus readability. Prelude is probably the best font at the moment being used on phones. The letters are very curved, a little more readable than Century Gothic (E.G. letter r), but less wasteful on character spacing.”

So how can you change your font too?

Click to read the rest of this article to change your icon fonts!

Note: this is for Symbian^3.  Folks have been doing this since old Symbian days. We don’t know yet if there will be any adverse reactions so to speak for S^3. This is not complicated at all. The thing that will take the longest to do is deciding which font use 😀 From steps 3- 6 that could be done in a minute. When you want to change fonts again you’ll only need steps 5 and 6.

Disclaimer: Do this at your own risk.

UPDATE 2: As noted, try at own risk. This already mucks up Ovi Store and prevents it from starting. Also I’ve had problems with Nokia Panorama but that’s been buggy since this morning.

To fix, remove memory card and delete “Resource” Folder.

Instructions:

1. You’ll need a memory card. Do not do this from mass memory.

2. Then get any True type font you wish ( should be of extension .ttf ) . You can download fonts online (just google for them) or find them on your pc. (In XP go to control panel>fonts) Yes I’m still on XP and will be until they stop supporting it :p.

3. In the Memory Card’s Root (the first main view with all the other folders) create a new folder called Resource. E.g. you should now have F:/Resource

4. Now inside  F:/Resource create a new folder called “Fonts” so now you’ll have F:/Resource/Fonts

5. Paste your font there. I have chosen Avenir which is very similar to the Palm Pre’s Prelude font.

6. Now make four copies of it. Ignore the “copy of….” we’ll change that. After, rename each one to have the exact names as shown below. (In windows you won’t see the ttf bit.)

• nosnr60.ttf
• nssb60.ttf
• nstsb60.ttf
• S60ZDIGI.ttf

7. Turn your phone off. Pop the memory card back in. Reboot. Some screenshots below

Now it’s up to you want font you use. It doesn’t take any time at all now that you have the folders set up. Here the fatter font does consume slightly more space but I think it’s much more pleasing to the eye than the narrow squashed default Nokia font.

What’s your favourite font? Got some screenshots? 😀

Via Gadgetbuff

Update: Got a few minutes – just noticed after backing up, my theme reverted back to default. Here’s what it looks like on a different theme.

keyboard not working to well here. No contrasting colours (but that’s due to theme)

Tags: C6-01, C7, Change Fonts, N8, Nokia N8

Category: How to:, Nokia, Nseries, Symbian