Unable to change default font in Android app

Question

I am trying to change the default font in my app. But its not working. These are steps I have taken:

1) Created class TypefaceUtil.java

import android.content.Context;
import android.graphics.Typeface;
import android.util.Log;

import java.lang.reflect.Field;

public class TypefaceUtil {

public static void overrideFont(Context context, String defaultFontNameToOverride, String customFontFileNameInAssets) {
    try {
        final Typeface customFontTypeface = Typeface.createFromAsset(context.getAssets(), customFontFileNameInAssets);

        final Field defaultFontTypefaceField = Typeface.class.getDeclaredField(defaultFontNameToOverride);
        defaultFontTypefaceField.setAccessible(true);
        defaultFontTypefaceField.set(null, customFontTypeface);
    } catch (Exception e) {
        Log.e("CustomFontException", "Can not set custom font " + customFontFileNameInAssets + " instead of " + defaultFontNameToOverride);
    }
  }
}

2) In a class extending Application:

public void onCreate() {

     super.onCreate();
     TypefaceUtil.overrideFont(getApplicationContext(), "MONOSPACE", "fonts/varelaround_regular.ttf");
 }

3) In styles.xml

 <style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
     <item name="android:typeface">monospace</item>
 </style>

Still its not working. Am I missing something ?

Answer 1

I had faced this problem once. I am not very sure why it works, but you can try the following : Instead of "monospace", try each of these: DEFAULT, SANS_SERIF, SERIF. It might not work for all textviews, like those in ListView or recyclerView (weird, right?). But in those cases, I set the typeface programatically from the adapter. Sorry for unable to explain the reason.

Answer 2

For this purpose, i highly recommend you to use Calligraphy, https://github.com/chrisjenx/Calligraphy, an awesome lib, really strait-forward to change the default font with it, and has many other useful functionalities.

Everything you need to set this up should be in the Readme.