Add Unicode-based System Fonts?

1st Official Post

    Hi, I am wonder if LibreELEC can consider adding Unicode-based system fonts into the distribution.

    The problem is, although you can copy your own fonts to the /storage/.kodi/media/Fonts to enable more fonts support on the subtitle, many add-ons, especially like Chromium, can only use system fonts. They do not use any copied fonts. This makes Chromium almost useless for people who need non-English support.

    Right now, it seems only Libreation fonts are in there. Google's Noto fonts might be a good choice.

    Thank you.

    Edited once, last by tzchang (April 9, 2017 at 9:19 AM).

    • Official Post

    Adding them into the core distro by default is not going to happen because our average OS image size is ~130MB and the complete Noto font collection is ~970MB according to the Google download page :)

    It's a valid request though. I'll ask the team to think about another method to make system-fonts user-installable.

    Solution is:


    1. Create a fonts folder under the directory: /storage/.local/share/
    - Enable ssh in libreelec services
    - Connect as root with filezilla or whatever method prefer. From shell ssh connection you can just run:
    # ssh root@yourlibreelecip then enter the password (default password is libreelec)
    # mkdir -p /storage/.local/share/fonts/noto
    - Copy your font archive (or font folders) into that directory.using pscp, scp, or filezilla etc etc, then;
    - cd /storage/.local/share/fonts/noto

    - Extract your font archive (# unzip Noto-hinted.zip), and clean up (# rm ./Noto-hinted.zip).


    2. Re-launch the chrome addon, then go to chrome://settings/fonts
    - Choose Advanced font settings - install the extension if you don't have it - now you should now be in business!

    Tested and working (and persistent after reboot). Don't forget to choose the required fonts for the language script you need in the advanced font settings.

    Stumbled upon this issue today - was mid-exam on a language course I paid $$ for, but had to be viewed via chrome. Had 'a moment' when the encoded characters displayed as squares. I HAD to solve it - so it's my 0-day solution. Libreelec is awesome, hope this post is useful to the developers and international folk.