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Hello!
I have recently purchased an Arabic font from a typographic designer in the form of .OTF file, which was downloaded and unzipped in my iPhone files folder.
I would appreciate getting guidance on how to install that font and type it with my keyboard.
As you can see, I have an iPhone 7 with iOS 15.8.3
Thank you kindly.
iPhone 7, iOS 15
ArabicFont wrote:
Hi Tom,
Thank you very much for the reply.
I downloaded the app and installed the font. How do I start typing with it?
If you open the Pages app, you should be able to able to select your downloaded font in its font menu.
If an app does not have a font menu, there’s no way to use a downloaded font, and some apps may not support them at all. What app are you using?
Hmm... Pages app requires iOS 17.0 or later, so that's unfortunately not going to work.
I was naive to think that after purchasing and downloading the font, I'd be able to use it on anything... like on Notes and Whatsapp and so on.
I thought that wherever I could type in Arabic, it would show up.
I did some researching and found that Word and Keynote also have a fonts menu, but they too require iOS 17.0.
Tom, if you know of any font-supporting apps that work on iOS 15, I'd be grateful for the tip with advance gratitude.
ArabicFont wrote:
Tom, if you know of any font-supporting apps that work on iOS 15, I'd be grateful for the tip with advance gratitude.
Sorry, no way to know. I'm on iOS 18, all my apps have been updated 3 times since 15, it's one of the less helpful results of the way Apple does things, eventually apps stop working or being available at all if you are not able to upgrade. I would be happy to test your font on my device, but I understand it's one you had to pay for.
No problem, I'll try to do something with it on my desktop instead.
Thank you for your input.
I will share with you the website where I found the font, in case you find a font you like.
Best,
If the font is too reductionist or ornamental in its visual representation, then it absolutely will be harder to parse, and that's where the designer's skill comes in -- through little strokes/serifs/curves/movements/etc. -- to remove ambiguity and evoke familiarity.
As with any writing system for any language, human eyes quickly scan the general outline of a letter to recognize it, so if the "soul" of a letter is still there in the new font, then our minds won't have too much trouble re-mapping it to the "default/classical" form.
For an example of this minimal "soul" of a letter, sometimes all I need to know is that one side is fatter than the other... or that a serif slants to the left or to the right... to be able to distinguish between two possible options.
I imagine those curvy, cursive fonts of Chinese characters in Chinese or Japanese calligraphy are probably recognizable to their readers in the same way.
So, yes, they are, rather largely, readable to me.
I use the app AnyFont to do this
Hi Tom,
Thank you very much for the reply.
I downloaded the app and installed the font. How do I start typing with it?
Forgive my ignorance.
Thanks! Interesting stuff! Are Arabic speakers able to read those kinds of artistic fonts without much trouble?
Installing a Private Arabic Font
