Fontsys

Pick any font installed on your computer and Minecraft uses it for all of its text: menus, HUD, chat, tooltips, signs, books, name tags and text displays.

Features

• Every installed font. Fontsys lists every font on your computer, including the faces inside .ttc collections (most macOS system fonts) and the named weights of variable fonts such as Segoe UI Variable, SF Pro and Inter.
• Real bold and italic. Bold and italic text uses the font's own Bold, Italic and Bold Italic faces, the way a word processor does, instead of Minecraft's doubled-up bold and slant. Server rank tags and chat formatting look clean and solid.
• Fonts just for this instance. Drag font files onto the settings screen, or put them in the instance's fonts folder (the Fonts folder button opens it), and they're listed alongside your system fonts, without installing them on your computer.
• Live preview. See the font with chat, tooltip, sign, bold and italic samples before anything changes, side by side with the next size down and up. Click a size to use it.
• See every font before you pick it. The font list shows each name in its own font, so you can browse by looks.
• Quick to find. Press F7 to open the settings. The search box is ready to type in, and the fonts you used last are listed first.
• Each font remembers its settings. Size, sharpness, shifts and hinting are kept per font: pick a font you've used before and its settings come back.
• One click, no restart. Apply the font and it's used everywhere straight away.
• Can't get stuck. You have 30 seconds to confirm a new font, or it switches back on its own. The confirmation dialog shows your new font in sample text, look-alike characters, chat, a sign and a tooltip, while its own text and buttons stay in the normal Minecraft font, so you can read it whatever you picked.
• Fine-tuning. Adjust size and sharpness. Fonts that sit a little high or low get a baseline shift on the Advanced screen, which shows your font on a button next to Minecraft's. There you can also choose the hinting: Full for the crispest letters, Light to keep the font's own shapes, or None for the softest, most faithful outlines.
• Crisp pixel fonts. Turn on Crisp edges and pixel-style fonts get hard, square pixels with no smoothing, like Minecraft's own font. The preview spots pixel fonts and suggests it.
• Clear text at a distance. Signs, name tags and text displays in your font stay dark and whole as you walk away, instead of breaking up.
• Works with Sodium and Iris. Fontsys uses Minecraft's own font renderer, so it works alongside them and on both OpenGL and Vulkan. On NeoForge, the current Sodium 0.9.3 betas need an Iris that isn't released yet, so use Sodium on its own there for now.
• Client-only. Servers don't need it. Server resource packs keep their custom HUD icons.
• Your fonts stay where they are. Fontsys reads fonts from where your system keeps them. It never bundles font files and makes no network connections. The only copy it makes is when you drop a font onto the settings screen, into the instance's fonts folder.

How to use

1. Drop the Fontsys jar into your mods folder. The same file works on Fabric, with Fabric API, and on NeoForge 26.3.0.103 or later, which doesn't need Fabric API.
2. Open the settings with F7, from Fontsys Settings… in Options → Language → Font Settings, or from Mod Menu on Fabric (Mods → Fontsys → Config on NeoForge).
3. Search for a font, pick a style, check the preview and press Apply. Press Enter or Keep changes to keep it.
4. Reset to vanilla switches back to the normal font at any time.
5. Fonts folder opens this instance's fonts folder. Fonts you put there are listed with an Instance tag.

Supported systems

• Windows 11 and macOS: supported.
• Linux: best effort. Standard font folders and Flatpak launchers; tested on Ubuntu 26.04.

Known limitations

• Complex scripts such as Arabic and Devanagari don't render correctly. Minecraft doesn't join or reorder glyphs, whatever font is used.
• Color emoji fonts can't be used, because Minecraft's text renderer is grayscale. They're hidden unless you turn on Show hidden fonts.
• Symbol fonts such as Wingdings are never listed, because Minecraft can't draw them.
• Fonts without a Bold or Italic face: bold text is thickened by FreeType, as word processors do; italic text uses Minecraft's slant. The preview shows which applies.
• Text far away in the world (signs, name tags) fades evenly as it gets smaller, but is hard to read beyond about 20 blocks. In Crisp edges mode it keeps hard pixels, so it can break up at a distance, as Minecraft's own fonts do.
• Large text sizes can be clipped in tight spots such as buttons and the scoreboard. Lower the size if that happens.
• Other font mods: if Caxton, Font, FontSwap or Modern UI is installed, Fontsys turns itself off and tells you, rather than fighting over the font.

Source and issues

Fontsys is open source under the MIT license: github.com/jekitchen/mc-fontsys. Please report problems in the issue tracker. If Fontsys is useful to you, you can buy me a coffee.