Usage Instructions for Niche Platforms

As you can tell, UnifontEX comes in a LOT of different font formats, and I figure I should address how to use them, especially the niche ones.

How to use the TrueType version on conventional PCs: Step 1: Download the font Step 2: Double-click it on your OS of choice and tell Windows Font Viewer, Font Book, or Linux/BSD/Hurd’s equivalent to install it. Step 2a: If on Linux/BSD/Hurd, you may have to run an fc-cache command (or restart the system) to make the font show up. Step 2b: If on newer Linux and this does not work, you may have to change the “.ttf” at the end of the file name to “-VF.otf” for it to work.

How to use the TrueType version on Samsung Galaxy devices: Step 1: Install zFont from Google Play, and make sure you have some room on your phone to complete the OneUI zFont method that involves backing up and restoring the settings to make the Samsung Sans-FlipFont-injected UnifontEX made by the app work. Ideally beforehand, you should change the font’s file extension from “.ttf” to “-VF.otf”. Step 2: Point zFont to your font file, and follow the OneUI directions.

How to use the TrueType version on other Android devices: Step 1: Install zFont from Google Play. Step 2: Follow the directions for your vendor if they are offered. Step 2a: If these do not work, or you are using stock Android, do the following:

How to use the TrueType version on stock Android: Step 1: Most likely you will have to root your device. Step 1a: If you can’t, your best hope is a custom launcher, but this isn’t as dramatic of a change. Step 2: Use zFont’s Root mode, or if you are confident in your knowledge of Android development, manually swap the fonts, but be VERY careful.

How to use the TrueType version on iOS: Step 1: Use a Mac (or iOS in some cases) app to bundle the font into a .mobileconfig profile, and then send it to yourself. Step 2: Install the profile from settings. Caveat: These fonts are largely only usable in captions, especially YouTube ones. Some text editors may allow using them, but they may cost money or be elusive (like QuickEdit on Android, which is free with some ads, but it allows selecting a TrueType directly, as does MoonReader even without payment. Stargon browser on Android is free and allows setting page font, and Samsung Internet can force pages to “system font” which will be UnifontEX after following the Android steps.) Step 2a: For finer control of fonts, you can jailbreak your device and use some Cydia tweaks to force the UI font to UnifontEX, but be very careful, because it may require restoring your device if you mess up.

How to use the TrueType version on a Kindle Touch: Step 1: After plugging it into USB, jailbreak the device, making sure it’s on the last Kindle Touch firmware. Step 2: Install KUAL. Step 3: Install the “Font Hack”, and in the fonts folder, put 5 copies of UnifontEX: named “UnifontExMono.ttf”, “UnifontExMono-Regular.ttf”, “UnifontExMono-Bold.ttf”, “UnifontExMono-Italic.ttf”, and “UnifontExMono-BoldItalic.ttf”. Step 4: In the Font Hack options, change the rendering to Amazon’s default rendering, which actually scales well. Step 5: For browsing AO3, install SkipStone, and go to the font settings and set every font to UnifontEX. Step 6: For reading offline AO3 fanfiction, install KOReader. Step 7: Go to KOReader’s fonts directory and put UnifontEX in it (also, you might want to put UnifontEX in the Kindle’s root directory). Step 7a: For best results, you should edit the KOReader configuration files that have to do with fonts to suit your level of UnifontEX integration. This may require some toying around, and also, don’t do anything wild enough to screw up your device, because you need to disable Driver Signing on Windows and use some elusive programs to unbrick a Kindle Touch, though other models of Kindles at worst need serial port reflashing, involving disassembly.

How to use the TrueType version on Amazon’s newest e-ink Kindles: Step 1: Plug the Kindle into USB. Step 2: Create a “fonts” folder if it does not already exist. Step 3: Drag UnifontEX into the folder, and for best quality, rename it to have “-VF.otf” rather than “.ttf” as the last characters of the filename.

How to use the BDF version on ancient Linux/BSD/Hurd: Step 1: Copy the file over. Step 2: Install it with command-line or graphical tools depending on your distro.

How to use the BDF version on WikiReader: Step 1: Download the firmware source tree. Step 2: Replace the font BDFs with UnifontEX’s BDF. Step 3: Compile the firmware update. Step 4: Install it, and hopefully it works. I don’t own one.

How to use the Arduino versions: Step 1: Use an Arduino Portenta H7 in particular. Step 2: Use U8G2 if you want a LOT of RAM left over, but if you have to use a display only supported by UCGLIB, use that instead and be careful with RAM. Step 3: Wire up and interface with the display as instructed by your display library’s guide. Step 3a: These fonts may be usable in an LED matrix with the right library. The same Arduino is needed, or you could use a Raspberry Pi if you want music playback if using it in, say, a TV head costume (copy the 24x18 Mk2 one on rose.systems and make the font centered).

How to use the OTB version on slightly-ancient Linux/BSD/Hurd: Step 1: Copy the font over. Step 2: Install it either via command-line or graphical tools depending on your distro.

How to use the DFONT version on more-modern Macs: Step 1: Copy it over and install it like a TrueType, though depending on the Mac it may complain. Step 1a: If it complains, try putting it in the Fonts directory.

How to use the DFONT version on Classic Mac OS: Step 1: Copy the font over somehow (if using Mac OS 9 under Classic Environment on Mac OS X Tiger in particular, you can theoretically make the Mac OS X install cross-pollinate the font into OS 9, but this may need assistant.) Step 2: Directly install it if it will let you. Step 2a: If it does not let you install it, you will need to use some utilities that exist that make the DFONT format (data fork is where the name comes from) into something compatible with resource forks common on older Mac versions. It’s certainly easier than regular TrueType, and the bitmaps help on the oldest of Mac OS versions able to handle DFONTs, even ones that complain on vector TrueTypes.

How to use the EOT version: Step 1: Host it somewhere that is not HTTPS. Step 2: Add two lines in the @font-face CSS part of the page, one of which has to have the type as “embedded-opentype” to fix ancient Internet Explorer versions. Step 3: If using stuff like TheOldNet, please do not use it in Dial-Up speed emulation mode, because there is no compression in EOT, and 13 megabytes over 56K is just asking for trouble with page loading timeout errors. Also use machines with enough RAM. Step 4: Set the font-family CSS property of the text you want to turn into UnifontEX as the family name for UnifontEX.

How to use the SVG version: Step 1: Host it somewhere that is not HTTPS. Step 2: Add a line in the @font-face CSS that points to the URL, specifying the type as SVG. Step 3: Set the font-family of your text to use it. Note: Cellular data speeds on iPhones that old (2010) are trash, and the networks for 3G and 2G are going down, so you probably want to use Wi-Fi here.

How to use the WOFF and WOFF2 versions: Step 1: Host it somewhere (as usual, it needs to be hotlinked). Step 2: Tell your CSS @font-face where the font is, and specify the format. Step 3: Set the text’s font-family CSS attribute that you want to change into UnifontEX.

How to use the TrueType version as a webfont: Step 1: Host it somewhere. Step 2: Tell your CSS @font-face where the font is, and specify the format. Step 3: Set the text’s font-family CSS attribute that you want to change into UnifontEX.

OR: I’ve made a CSS file you can just use instead and change the URLs in it to wherever you host it.

How to use the TTF2PNG version: Step 1: If in a game, load the PNG as a sprite sheet. It is stored in 16x16 cells from U+0000 to U+10FFFF, without removing non-filled cells. Step 1a: If making embedded systems, put the PNG directly on a 1MiB flash chip with an EEPROM programmer. Step 1b: If so, hook up a DEFLATE decoder circuit capable of handling PNGs that are chunked into 8KiB blocks, which there are 126 of, and put the circuit in between the chip and the rest of your video chip circuitry. Step 1c: If making a fan translation, shove the font into the last megabyte of cartridge space, and make sure you have the room, and a CPU that is fast enough to decode DEFLATE. A Game Boy Color might be needed out of the 8-bit GB line. Step 1d: If on Game Boy Advance or Nintendo DS, use the BIOS functions that decode LZ77 and Huffman. Step 2: Calculate the occupied character width to determine half-width, but account for characters that are supposed to be fullwidth. Step 3: Output the characters to the environment/buffer after accounting for those and combining+RTL characters.

How to use the SVGZ version: Step 1: Unzip it in software as a GZip file. Step 2: Repeat the SVG usage steps.

How to use the WOFF3 version: Step 1: Unzip it in software as a .B3K file. Step 2: Repeat the TrueType usage steps.

How to use the SFD version: Step 1: Open it in FontForge. Step 2: Open the glyph properties of null and click “Set from name” or “Set from value” to fix a bug in FontForge. Note: This is the source code.

How to use the PC-98 version: Step 1: Replace ANEX86.BMP in your PC-98 emulator with this file.

Now for use cases:

How to make tests/surveys: Step 1: After installing the font (ideally TrueType since it is widely-supported and it has VDMX, but please install it with the “-VF.otf” extension instead of “.ttf” for best results), set the font in your word processor to it. Step 2: Set the font size to be a multiple of 16 pixels. On Windows, 16 pixels is 12-point, on Mac, 16 pixels is 16-point, and on Linux/BSD/Hurd, it’s another number, but technically you have the ability to toy with it, and also there are different desktop environments. Step 2a: If on Windows, and you use Microsoft Word, and you are making a math test, you need to open Regedit and go to the place where Microsoft Word stores the list of math fonts and add UnifontEX to it. Step 2b: For portability, in apps like Microsoft Word and LibreOffice, set the document properties to make UnifontEX embed in the document. On Word, set it to apply to all new documents, uncheck the button that only includes used characters, and check the box that won’t store system fonts. LibreOffice can’t do this globally, so on every document you need to do this. Also it can’t subset but it can do the second box. Step 3: If desired, set the line spacing to be double-spaced like all style guides recommend. Step 4: Keep everything consistent. Step 5: Open the menu for inserting special characters. Step 6: Look in Enclosed Alphanumerics or Enclosed Alphanumerics Supplement for the bubbled and darkened letters, as well as Miscellaneous Symbols and Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs for checkboxes and other markers. Step 6a: There are MANY more symbols. Note: In LibreOffice, you can search for characters without scrolling through everything. Word really hates labeling Plane 1 characters. Step 7: Make sure all bubbles are the first character of each line, and that the text doesn’t go under one badly. Step 7a: Print the document on a consistent paper size you can scan optically. Step 8: If making polls or true/false questions, there are checkboxes in all states, checked, unchecked, X-ed out, thin, and heavy, and permutations of this. Step 9: There are arrows and a stop sign if you are making California-type standardized tests.

How to use the font in a Terminal and IDE: Step 1: Install the font. Step 2: Go to your terminal or IDE’s settings, set the font to be 16px, and set it to the font. Note: On legacy Windows Console, if on Japanese codepages, temporarily set it to English to enable the font, and then once it’s enabled, you can go back to Japanese. Step 2a: In your IDE, set every font to UnifontEX to enable better Unicode across the board, then set all font sizes to a multiple of 16px.

You get the idea.