How to: Install Nepali/Devnagari Font in Android

Update: If you do not want to mess with ADB Follow the steps from my new post about Yet another way to Install Nepali/Devnagari font on Android devices.

One of the issues with Android is that it doesn’t come with Nepali / Devanagari font by default. When I visit websites with Nepali font or have posting on Facebook with Nepali text, it shows up as boxes. Similar to image below.

It started to be more annoying as I would get emails in Nepali font, and I would have to check it on a computer.
So after tinkering around, I am happy to report that I have a solution.
This is how I solved it:
Download the Font (DroidSansFallback.ttf) on your SDCard:
DroidSansFallback.ttf

Using ADB (You may be able to use some “Explorer app” with root access. adb is simple if you have Android SDK installed)

Go to the device console:

$ ./adb shell
#

Mount your phone drive so you can have write access to system folder

# mount -o remount,rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system

Now, Simply copy over the font from your sdcard to “/system/fonts”.
(font might be already existing on the device, you can just overwrite it.)

# cp /mnt/sdcard/DroidSansFallback.ttf /system/fonts

(Note: DroidSansFallback.ttf is stored on the root of the sdcard.)
Thats it, now reboot your device and your device should render Nepali font with no issues

Hope this helps!