Great work on this thread guys, i never would have thought that free apps with plenty of features would get some of this done for me.
Yeah, I love the SBL Greek font. I also use Logos on my Galaxy S (first generation) to read the GNT. 
The Logos app also has free access to the entire Perseus library in Greek, Latin and English. Dictionary lookups, however, work relatively well for the Greek, but not so well in Latin, unfortunately. Something to build upon for later releases, I suppose…
So, how do I install the SBL font on my Samsung Android phone?
thanks
christos
I havent’ really “concluded” anything of the kind, other than the fact that MY instance of the OS (a Verizon Droid Incredible 2) does not allow me to install additional fonts (like you can on a desktop OS). iOS doesn’t either, but it doesn’t need to–it supports it automatically!
And, in any event I “conclude” this because the the developers themselves (or at least their advisers) told me so. I submitted this as an “issue” to Google last year and here is the response I received from an advisor to their development team:
Comment #2 on issue 26037 by emmanoue...@gmail.com: Support for Polytonic Greek (and/or other languages that should be UTF-8 enabled)
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=26037I reported the issue to the Ascender Team (1st September 2011) and both Brian Kraimer and Steve Kuhlman answered that they passed my comments to the development team. After seven months (10th April 2012), having seen no results and already moved to android 4.0, I contacted again the Ascender Team, and Steve Kuhlman answered that they did pass my comments along to the development team at Google and that it’s up to up to Google to determine which languages get supported and when they role that out (The Ascender Team can only provide input). It’s a shame that ancient greek language is still not supported by Google Android. Browsing pages with Greek polytonic (extended) content show the unsupported characters like boxes (if not missing completely). Trouble seems to exist with Google Drive and other document apps (such as documents to go, even though the in-app-font Arial Unicode MS supports greek extended). Multiling keyboard supports writing Greek polytonic but android system does not support viewing. Why should I have to root my device in order to read ancient greek on my device? Please update the Roboto and DroidSerif fonts with Greek extended, so that this embarrassing issue seizes to exist.
So, it’s not really important whether, technically speaking, it’s an “operating system” issue or not. The fact is that the “operating system” does not come loaded on at least some of our phones with the capability of displaying polytonic fonts WITHOUT having to either specify a font set (which none of the browsers allow you to do anyway) or rooting the phone. I am not going to root my phone to prove that it’s not an OS issue! And yes, I can change the font on Anymemo to display polytonic greek. However, I do NOT have to do this on my iPod. If that’s not an OS issue, then what is? Whether or not the OS is capable of it is really isn’t very useful if you have to install special apps just to display a font.
And for the record, Fontomizer does not work on my phone. The only Fontomizer I get is some Galaxy affair. And even if is installing an ubuntu font, it’s not getting me any farther in displaying diacritics on the Perseus Project pages (which display just fine under iOS.)
So, that’s how I draw my conclusions. If I’ve overlooked something, I would be open to any constructive assistance to make this work. I would also urge anyone else who has experienced similar issues to log their concerns directly with Google. I suspect they’re not doing anything about it because not enough people are telling them.
I have written instructions how to install the Greek compatible, free font files from New Athena Unicode 4.05 into a Samsung Galaxy S II ICS (4.0.x) phone. See http://personal.inet.fi/koti/korhoj/android/
I don’t trust Fontomizer. I cannot fathom why it requires the permission “Directly call phone numbers”?! Does it want to call some foreign number or what? The permission “Full internet access” should be enough to fetch files from Internet. At least the 05-Oct-2011 v. named Fontimizer SP(Font for Galaxy) in the Play Store asks for the aforementioned permission.
A manual procedure for replacing Android’s system font with a better one:
Root your phone (see http://personal.inet.fi/koti/korhoj/android/rooting.html)
Install the fonts (see http://personal.inet.fi/koti/korhoj/android/fonts.html):
Download NAU or any TTF fonts you know to work with Greek
Rename the regular, bold, italic and bold/italic variants to Roboto-Regular.ttf, Roboto-Bold.ttf, Roboto-Italic.ttf and Roboto-BoldItalic.ttf
Copy .ttf to any regular folder in the phone
Install Android Terminal Emulator by Jack Palevich from Google Play (or use adb)
Backup the default fonts from the phone folder /system/fonts to any regular folder
Copy the new Roboto.ttf fonts into /system/fonts
Restart the phone
I also tried rooting the phone and uploading the ttf files with their original names into /system/fonts but FlipFont didn’t detect them.
One would think there was an easier way to change fonts e.g. via an API but I haven’t found one. Android API seems to protect /system as it can be also be used to other “root” things which perhaps do need to be limited somewhat.
Cheers,
Joel
Does anyone know if there’s been further progress on this? It’s rather inconvenient to have to risk bricking one’s (rather expensive) device just to use a particular font.
I’ve semi-bricked my Note 2 today trying to solve the problem through rooting and installing a Font Installer app. It’s in a bootloop, and I’m doing all I can to resolve it. Android has really screwed us with this.
Lodge your complaint on our open issue thread: https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=26037
OK, so my phone wasn’t bricked. It was in a bootloop. I was able to flash it with the original ROM and release it from the loop, then I installed another ROM (Jedi Master). I’ve taken care of the font display disaster by using the application Root Explorer and replacing the various Roboto fonts (the defaults) with a Unicode-compliant font.
I can now see all polytonic Greek, though I cannot type in polytonic Greek (yet?).
This is from my computer:
Δοκῶ μοι περὶ ὧν πυνθάνεσθε οὐκ ἀμελέτητος εἶναι· καὶ γὰρ ἐτύγχανον πρώην εἰς ἄστυ οἴκοθεν ἀνιὼν Φαληρόθεν· τῶν οὖν γνωρίμων τις ὄπισθεν κατιδών με πόῤῥωθεν ἐκάλεσε, καὶ παίζων ἅμα τῇ κλήσει· Ὦ Φαληρεύς, ἔφη, οὗτος Ἀπολλόδωρος, οὐ περιμένεις; κἀγὼ ἐπιστὰς περιέμεινα· καὶ ὅς·
This is a screenshot of the above post from my phone (Samsung Galaxy Note 2) using Google Chrome browser. It actually looks better than it does on my computer’s browser (since I hate the default font that Textkit uses).
Are all these solutions only for Samsung Galaxy phones?
What if I have a cheap-ass (but perfectly suitable for my needs) AKAI tablet
running Androind 4.0.3 and I want to display polytonic Greek? I’ve tried setting the font
encoding in my browser to UTF-8 but I still cannot view diacritics.
AnkiDroid with the added font (FreeSerif) installed does not display the diacritics in the flashcards.
Any help is appreciated.
Hi, Nate. Have you found a solution? I would search Google for a way to root the AKAI tablet. It’s Android, right? If so, you should be able to access system fonts when rooted.
I’ve posted on Google’s Nexus product forums: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/nexus/N5KCeFa1his/4kzJajK-J9IJ
If anyone else wants to jump in, we may be able to get this fixed. I could also try to leverage some of my Google contacts.
I’ve responded there. We need to get other people to weigh in on it. Send EVERYONE you know there. Android will do nothing unless they know that it’s something that people insist on and that people will move to other platforms if no response is forthcoming.
Hi, Jason. Thanks for responding. An AKAI tablet – excuse my french – isn’t worth the goddamn
200nis I’ve paid for it, even if that’s a cheap-ass tablet from a low-quality seemingly unknown company.
I’ve exchanged the tablet three times in the store since I’ve bought it, and I gave up afterwards.
I’ve used it mostly to record my classes in college, but then it croaked as well. I’ve managed to back
them up and I now just leave it off. It makes a nice coaster though. 
I think you can download and install it from Android application store.
Firefox Browser for Android worked just fine on one of my Android devices.
“Working just fine” means displaying classical Greek text with all the pronunciation marks. The text I use is simple HTML files that I code by hand. I create them in Windows 7 as *.txt files (using UTF-8 encoding) and, when done, simply change the extension from ‘txt’ to ‘htm’. (I suspect Firefox may be able to display *.txt files too, without even HTML tagging, though I haven’t tried it.)
The Android device for which it “works fine” is my Nook HD. It’s not rooted; I installed no special font. To view the HTML file, I navigate to it in ES File Explorer File Manager (an app) and click it and choose to use Firefox. You may have to long-press the file (in ES File Explorer File Manager) until a check mark appears to the right, click the “More” button at the bottom, then “Open As” and finally choose Firefox.
It’s my first posting.
This method does not work on my Samsung Galaxy Player GB1. (If anyone can tell me what I need to do to my GB1 so it works too, it’d be great!)
UPDATE
I am adding the following bit on 12 FEB 2015.
I also got my Samsung Galaxy Player to display polytonic Greek font in Firefox, by following the directions on this page:
Notes on my experience:
-
The page recommends using “Firefox for Android Beta app” rather than “Firefox for Android.” I ignored this and just went with the latter.
-
The page at one point says, “If you simply want polytonic Greek text to be readable, but aren’t necessarily fussy about it being just so,” then you could stop at that point, but otherwise go on. I stopped at that point, but still found the display to be just so. (I don’t know how much more “just so” it’s going to get if I got fussy.)
-
Basically, you only have to understand the few lines of instructions between “To install” and “If you simply want…” and follow them.
Here’s my Android experience with polytonic Greek:
Toshiba Thrive tablet, Android 4.0.4, Firefox browser: polytonic will not display, and Toshiba is not going to issue any android updates for this device, so it’s obsolete.
Samsung Galaxy Note3, Android 4.4.4, Firefox browser: polytonic displays, but of course there’s no polytonic keyboard.
So I bought a HP Windows 8.1 tablet, and of course I can both read & write polytonic Greek.
Orrin.
Thanks, Orrin.
I rooted my Galaxy Grand DUOS (running Android 4.1.2) and installed fonts that support polytonic Greek. My phone now displays everything perfectly both in Serif and Sans options. I have no keyboard for writing polytonic Greek, of course.
I also went the way of Windows for my tablet. I have a Windows Surface (RT) that has a polytonic Greek keyboard on it.
I made the decision a while back not to go with Android for a tablet, since they were doing NOTHING to correct this issue. If they don’t support us and our interests, why should we support their interests? In order not to void my warranty in order to view Greek properly, my next telephone will probably not be an Android either. It’s bad, since I want to be a supporter of the Open Source project and to devote money to Android development, but the developers are apparently not interested in our specific area of the geek continuum.
While searching for add-ons, I saw that Firefox for Android has plugins for fallback fonts, e.g. for Khmer and Burmese (but not Polytonic Greek).
I tried them and Burmese and Khmer displayed in Firefox. No rootiing done.
So, technically it shouldn’t be that hard to have a Polytonic Greek version with the Ubuntu font.