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As this article explains, Android's visual identity has moved from the Droid Sans font to the Roboto font as of Android 4.0. However, the licensing for the font is unclear (to me) and the Wikipedia article doesn't seem to shine light on this matter.

Can this site use Roboto in place of Droid Sans? Should it?

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  • 6
    Android is customizable. Perhaps useres here should be able to choose which font they see.
    – gary
    Commented Dec 9, 2011 at 3:27
  • @gary The mobile site could potentially take advantage of the user agent and choose the matching font by default.
    – Matthew Read Mod
    Commented Dec 13, 2011 at 19:19
  • @MatthewRead that would be cool (even if it's subtle)
    – gary
    Commented Dec 14, 2011 at 1:06

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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I have added "Roboto" to the font stack for the site(both main and Meta).

For now I'm not using it as a web font like I did with Droid Sans, since I'm not too clear on the re-distribution licensing.

Roboto should show up on handheld after the next production build. Meanwhile if you want to see it on your desktop, you can download the font manually.

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  • fontsquirrel.com/license/roboto seems to suggest it would be fine
    – badp
    Commented Dec 24, 2011 at 10:32
  • I have the font installed on my PC (Windows XP) but unfortunately it is not so beautiful to see on desktop as it is on Android devices.
    – Drake
    Commented Jan 18, 2012 at 9:23
  • Sorry to bother you, but could you revisit including Robot as a web font? Personally I think it looks a lot better than Droid Sans. ;)
    – hichris123
    Commented Mar 3, 2015 at 22:16
  • @hichris123 we have been using Roboto as a web font though. do you not see it?
    – Jin
    Commented Apr 2, 2015 at 19:47
  • @Jin Now I do, but previously it was rendering as Droid Sans on Windows.
    – hichris123
    Commented Apr 2, 2015 at 19:50

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