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Embedding Fonts in HaxeFlixel with FlxText

Posted on 2015-12-22

Tagged with: HaxeFlixel

The FlxText class provides three ways to set the font:

• By setting the font field to a font name (eg. Times New Roman). This works with embedded fonts (TTF file is in Assets and included in the final binaries)
• By setting the systemFont field to a font name. This only works with system fonts, which can be tricky if your app has to work across Windows and Linux, or across mobile and desktop. There's a small list of web safe fonts which you can try.
• By calling the setFormat method. You can specify lots of properties together; in particular, you can specify the path to a TTF file, eg. setFormat("assets/MyCustomFont.ttf", ...)

The third method strikes me as the most maintainable, because it's immediately obvious which font you're using, and where that font file originates from. With system fonts and embedded fonts, if the font doesn't work, it's more work to triage and isolate exactly where the problem lies (did you add the font file to Assets? Is it embedding properly? Did you specify the correct name? Does it work on other targets?).

The third method also has the best chance to be consistent and cross-platform compatible (by virtue of using embedded fonts), because you're not relying on whatever fonts might be included in the device's system.

Google Fonts provides a wealth of fonts which you can use. You can download all of them (as TTF and OTF) and embed them in your HaxeFlixel games.