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A folder for storing custom fonts. Any .ttf files placed here are automatically picked up by NativeScript.

Using Custom Fonts ​

Place the .ttf files in the src/fonts folder, then run

cli
ns fonts

The result is a table with the font file name and the necessary CSS properties you can copy/paste into your css:

FontCSS Properties
albert-sans-700.ttffont-family: "Albert Sans", "albert-sans-700"; font-weight: 700;
fa-regular-400.ttffont-family: "Font Awesome 5 Free", "fa-regular-400"; font-weight: 400;

Add a new css class (for example in app.css) with the CSS Properties from the table (the name of the class can be anything)

css
.font-albert-sans {
  font-family: 'Albert Sans', 'albert-sans-700';
  font-weight: 700;
}

.far {
  font-family: 'Font Awesome 5 Free', 'fa-regular-400';
  font-weight: 400;
}

Note

Using ns fonts is optional, however we recommend using it because iOS and Android recognize .ttf files differently. On Android, the font is recognized by its file name while on iOS it is recognized by its font name. Fonts that have a different font name than the file name have to be registered with both names in the CSS rule.

You are ready to use the new fonts, apply the font class to an element and it will use the new font.

xml
<Label class="font-albert-sans" text="The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog"></Label>

Font Icons ​

In case of font icons, you will need to set the text to the correct char code of the icon, for example &#xf019;, or in case of an Image you can use the font:// scheme as the src.

xml
<Label class="far" text="&#xf019;"></Label>
<Image class="far" src="font://&#xf019;"></Image>

Note for Vue users

In Vue, when using html entities like the char codes above, use the .decode modifier on the property, in this case text.decode and src.decode to opt-into parsing HTML entities (disabled by default).

xml
<Label class="far" text.decode="&#xf019;" />
<Image class="far" src.decode="font://&#xf019;" />
Sizing font images

Images have specific stretch options (none, aspectFit, aspectFill). Font icons on the other hand usually use font-size to control the size of the icon. When using an Image, you can control the size with font-size, but you need to set stretch="none" for it to take effect. Setting stretch to anything other than none will cause the icon to be stretched by measuring the image.

If an icon doesn't appear, or renders unintended characters, make sure you are using the correct font family and weight.

Fonts Icons vs Images ​

In many cases font icons are ideal replacements for images since they have a few drawbacks:

  • pixelation/loss of quality when scaled up
  • may require additional http requests to be fetched
  • increase the application size when embedded

On the other hand, font icons:

  • scale well
  • do not require additional http requests
  • do not increase memory usage significantly

However font icons have a limitation, they can only have a single color.

Additional Resources ​

Previous
src/
Next
app.css•scss