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Changing Standard WoW Fonts for Readability and Style
来自 RenataKane
[Last Updated]:
2020/01/13
变更日志
补丁:1.15.2
目录
评分:
Why Change Fonts?
Blizzard chose magnificent fonts for its text, titles, and headings. They add great style and flair, and artists chose them for good reasons. They enhance the feel of the game and create a fantasy aesthetic many people take for granted.
However, these beautiful fonts can also be difficult to read, particularly for players who may have low vision, poor contrast vision, or dyslexia. This can make reading quest text, in-game mail, or chat challenging and can take away from easy enjoyment of the game.
Some people might just like to have a certain "look" that isn't offered with the standard game. This guide will focus on issues of readability and clarity, but of course, there are many reasons why you might want to change the font faces to suit your own tastes.
Fortunately, changing out standard fonts in WoW -- any version -- is a simple matter. Nothing gets replaced in the standard folders. Font files are renamed to mimic the four standard fonts in WoW, placed in a folder, and added to the appropriate WoW folder. All you need to understand is (a) what fonts control which parts of the interface and (b) how to create the necessary folder and files to change these to what you want them to be.
The Four Standard Fonts and Their Uses
These are listed in reverse order of use. The first font may not even be in any current version of the game. The other three fonts are easy to identify.
Skurri: the (Mostly) Missing Font
This font seems to have been used more early on in WoW's history, but I could only find it in one instance that it still appears: the text that appears over player and pet portraits during combat when they are taking damage. Rumor was it was more widespread in the combat system, but almost all the rest of the combat numbers I could find were in the dominant Friz Quadrata font (below).
The font is a bit rough, even in TrueType, as it doesn't have good anti-aliasing (a font technology for smoothing curves and jagged edges), which in this case appears to be a style choice.
You can have some fun with this one, since it's so little-used. I replaced Skurri with the font
Bloody
(free download from Font Squirrel). It's a bit large but definitely gets its point across.
Morpheus: the Ornamental Font
If there is one font that represents World of Warcraft, it's Morpheus. This iconic, stylish font, with its squared-off letters, mix of lower- and upper-case letters, dots inside the Os, is truly a work of font art.
Morpheus' primary purpose is decorative -- it's most often used as a title font, such as titles of quests. However, it's also used as main text in at least two instances: mail and books. All letters are written in Morpheus font, as is the text of all interactive books in the world. For example, this is what you see when you open the book on the second floor of the Gallows' End Tavern in Brill:
Beautiful and stylish? Definitely. But it also can be demanding to read. Our eyes aren't used to reading text like this for long periods of time. Even if you don't have a vision or reading difficulty, reading blocks of this font can be tiring.
Arial Narrow: the Chat Font
Arial Narrow is the font used by the chat system. it's also used to record experience and money; anything recorded like this , even in Wowhead, defaults to Arial.
So what's wrong with Arial Narrow? It's clean and crisp, and seems easy enough to read. However, it's also ... well, narrow. For people with low vision, contrast vision issues, or dyslexia, white space -- the area around and between the letters -- is as important as the lines when determining readability. Lack of spacing between letters can make the letters appear to run together. Even blowing it up to its maximum size of 18 points in the chat window doesn't solve the white space problem, and only shows a few lines of chat at a time.
Arial Narrow is a logical choice for Blizzard to make for the chat system, where a clean, compact font makes sense, but it's not ideal for everyone.
Friz Quadrata: the "Everything Else" Font
Friz Quadrata is the go-to font for nearly everything. Quest text, vendor and training dialogues, nameplates, server lists -- it's easier to say what isn't in Friz Quadrata than what is. Change this font and you'll see the difference in every corner of your game experience.
As a general text font, Friz is also an elegant and sensible choice for most players. It has enough style to fit the fantasy world, while maintaining decent readability for most people. This is a serif font ("serifs" are the little projection strokes on the end of type; "sans-serif", such as Arial Narrow above, has no such projections). Most printed reading material is produced in serif fonts (books, newspapers, magazines, etc), so most people find these easier to read.
But there are key differences in Friz Quadrata that may increase difficulty, particularly for dyslexic users. Although most people find serif fonts easier to read, dyslexic readers do better with sans-serif. And given that so much of WoW's text is in a serif font, they may be more successful replacing it with a font that's easier to decipher.
Choosing Replacement Fonts
Replacement fonts must be TrueType (.ttf) or OpenType Format (.otf) fonts only.
Everyone has their own preferences for what they find stylish, fun, or readable. You may decide to try something fun and unusual, but if you're like me and spend (possibly too many) hours playing WoW, you may find these fonts tiring over the long run. While I was testing font usage, I used a very distinctive cursive font to tell what was being replaced. Distinctive, yes, but I don't think I'd want to have to read this for long.
It also points out one of the problems with many "stylish" fonts: they may not have all the characters available. This particular font is missing entries for
<
and
>
, so it replaces the missing characters with
?
. Needless to say, everyone's guild name will look odd as a result. Style is good, but you also need to be able to read the game's text without undue distraction.
If you want to use a stylish font, I highly recommend trying to find an OpenType Format version.
OpenType is newer and is far more likely to have full support for less used punctuation and special characters.
There are many places to find free fonts online, but one of my favorite overall sources is
Font Squirrel
. Everything there is either TTF or OTF, safe to download, and 100% free and legal to use. There are also great filters so you can easily find the perfect font for you.
Although popularly derided in development circles,
Comic Sans
has routinely tested high on readability, but there are other choices. There are fonts that have been developed specifically for readability, and if that is an issue for you, you might wish to check them out:
Lexie Readable
is my personal favorite. Although I don't have dyslexia or non-correctible reading issues, I use corrective lenses and am prone to eyestrain. I find it a much easier, restful font to use for most of my WoW needs. In fact, I replace all the fonts except Arial Narrow with Lexie Readable.
Download Lexie Readable here
- free for personal use
Dyslexic players may prefer a weighted font such as
Open Dyslexic.
This is a font that has a small amount of "ink" weight applied to the bottom, which may help some readers.
Download Open Dyslexic here
- free for personal use
This is an example of what replacing the fonts can look like. This replaces both Morpheus (letter text) and Friz Quadrata ("Take Attachments") with Lexie Readable:
Replacing your Fonts: Step by Step
Step 1: Create a Fonts folder.
There is no native folder for fonts, so there is nothing to remove or replace. The fonts are built into the game The
Fonts
folder will override the default choices.
Locate your World of Warcraft folder and select either the
_classic_
or
_retail_
folder, depending on where you are making changes.
Create a folder named
Fonts
inside this folder (case sensitive).
Step 2: Choose your replacement font files for each font you want to replace, and place them inside this folder.
Replacement fonts must be TrueType or OpenType.
In this example, I have decided to replace three of the fonts (Skurri, Morpheus, and Friz Quadrata) with Lexie Readable, so I need three copies of that font. I am replacing Arial Narrow with Comic Sans (just temporarily, since I'm not a personal fan of this font).
Step 3: Rename the font files -- CAREFULLY!
These file names are case sensitive and very specific. Also, be aware that the extension MUST be ".ttf", even if the file you're using is originally an .otf.
skurri.ttf
ARIALN.ttf
MORPHEUS.ttf
FRIZQT__.ttf
These file names must be exact or they will not work. The FRIZQT__.ttf is the tricky one. The __ in the file name is
two
underscores with no spaces.
If you have .oft files, don't hesitate to change the extension to .ttf. OpenType is based on the TrueType standard and will work just fine even if the extension is renamed. You can change the extension between TTF and OTF files, but not between other file types.
IMPORTANT: On WIndows machines, you may get an error if you try to add a .TTF extension if you don't have "Show Extensions" turned on (you may end up with a file that's actually named MORPHEUS.ttf.ttf by mistake). The safest road is to turn on extensions. In WIndows 10, go to Settings and typing "File Extensions" in the search box. This will take you to the For Developers section. Scroll down to File Explorer and make sure the box "Change settings to show file extensions" is checked.
You do not have to replace all four fonts. If you want to leave a certain font alone, just don't put a replacement file in for it. For example, on my own system, I usually have no replacement font for Arial Narrow, since I like that as a chat font. Simply leave out any font you don't want to replace.
Step 4: Log on and assess!
If you don't like the results, it's a simple fix: delete the offending font file from your created Fonts folder. It will refer to Blizzard's default font next time you log on.
Troubleshooting
The most common mistakes are:
not using a TrueType or OpenFormat Type font
not following case - folder and file names are case sensitive
typing the wrong extension (like "tff" instead of "ttf")
minor spelling errors (like FRITZQT instead of FRIZQT, or using one or three underscores instead of two)
Nearly every person who has contacted me privately about problems using this method was not using a TrueType or OpenType font as the replacement font.
This is by far the most common issue.
Nearly all modern font files are .TTF, but if you are trying to use an older font face from a personal library, it's likely to be a Postscript font file (.PFB, .PFM, .AFM, .INF, or .OFM). Older versions of Windows also used .FNT files for storing fonts. If you're using a font that was downloaded along with certain programs from Adobe and Microsoft, it may also be a Web Open Font Format (.WOFF) file. None of these file formats will work with WoW.
Some readers have also suggested removing the .TTF extension entirely. If you're still having issues, try removing the extension completely and see if that works.
If you are not sure about what font type you have, it's better to find a TrueType or OpenType font file from a font website such as
Font Squirrel
(many allow you to download the free for personal use). Downloading this fresh will ensure you're using the correct file type.
About the Author
RenataKane is an OG (Original Gamer, She/Her), starting with a Telstar Pong console her father brought home in the mid-1970s, leading to years of arcade, console, and PC games. Playing World of Warcraft since 2005, Ren has flipped among an Orc Rogue, Orc Warlock, and Undead Warrior as her main du jour since the original
Burning Crusade
. From 2006-2011 and 2016-2021, she was co-host of one of the original, longest-running WoW podcasts,
World of Warcast
. She joined the Wowhead team as a writer and editor in 2019 and has published over 525 guides for Wowhead's Classic, Retail, and Diablo divisions. She loves professions, grinding reputations, leveling way too many alts, and finding interesting ways to play the game outside "normal" pursuits such as raiding.
Hive Social: @RenataKane
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评论
评论来自
EXPERIMENTONGOD
Excellent guide!
I HATE the Morpheus font so much, it's so unreadable. Thanks!
评论来自
Paultje82
I can recommend Coolvetica RG font,i tried alot but always fall back too this.
评论来自
Scottybrink
I'm trying to get this to work as of 9/20/19 with no luck. I've only got Classic WoW installed and I have the Fonts folder created with a font in there but no matter what I use for naming (or adding all 4 names) it doesn't change my fonts. I've tried disabling all of my addons as well with no luck. Any insight is appreciated!
评论来自
Nasska
If it doesn't change your font, just do one thing: remove extension ".tff" and it will work!
评论来自
equidingo
Для кирилличных шрифтов имена файлов следующие:
FRIZQT___CYR.ttf
MORPHEUS_CYR.ttf
SKURRI_CYR.ttf
评论来自
daftsage
Thank you so much for this. I've been using ClearFont2 (which hasn't been updated in years) for a specific font that I really like for my addons. It still essentially works but it's throwing more and more errors* as time goes by and I can't ignore it any longer. I was having issues finding another font pack that I like and stumbled across this article.
I had never really thought about replacing the fonts from the game itself. I was able to find out the actual name of the font ClearFont used and downloaded it. Soooo happy now! And as a side note, I did have to take the .ttf off the name to get it to work just like a few others noted.
*Funnily enough, it works perfectly well in in Classic. ;)
评论来自
Snichy
Just came here to say this worked as at prepatch 9.0 (but had to remove the .ttf as per other comments for it to work!)
评论来自
Noobiedoobie
I find some of the fancy fonts difficult to read when on the smaller settings.
If Blizz can do a whole colorblind section in as part of their accessibility settings, why can't they include 1 or two really clear fonts and a couple of higher font size options?
I actually came here to say thank you and that removing the extension worked for me too.
评论来自
trashdove
If you want another font for readability but don't like Comic Sans or the other options given, you can try
Lexend Deca
. It's free on Google Fonts. GF is genrally a nice place to look for quality free fonts.
Also, to change the font in your Friends List ingame, add a font file entitled FRIENDS. It's also Friz Quadrata by default, but uses a separate font file for some reason
评论来自
Suncats
I know this is way late to the game; but getting a bit older and having an issue reading the stuff.
You steps and explanation on how to do this was quite well done.
I would like to thank you for your post.
评论来自
SgtGrumbles
How does this work with the new fonts they added to in-game mail? I have no idea what the font is that they used.
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