custom subtitles font

[Dex_Q8 3]

hello everyone

 

can somebody guide me how to add a custom font to make my emby use it for subtitles, I already have the font file and it's works like a charm in another media player but I really liked empy and I don't want to use any other platform.

 

best regards

[ebr 16396]

Hi.  It is not possible to do this at this time.  Why are you wanting to change the font?

[Dex_Q8 3]

Hi.  It is not possible to do this at this time.  Why are you wanting to change the font?

I understand that English has a standard fonts that is readable by mostly everyone "this forum fonts for example" but unfortunately that's not the case in my native language

I'm not referring that there is a problem in the app because everything is perfect and I really appreciate the hard work by the developers but mostly it is a personal preference

Edited May 9, 2020 by Dex_Q8

[ebr 16396]

Okay, thanks for the feedback.

 

FYI - you can change the size and color in the settings.

[b0ao692mc 1]

Hello there, it would be a great idea to add that feature in order to let us choose the best display font according to the TV set resolution.

Actually, the font chosen isn't the best for screen display.

[b0ao692mc 1]

For example, the emby app on LG smart TVs shows up a good readable font.  Actually, I don't know if that font is taken from LG's webOS system, but it's good.

The ones on emby Android and Fire TV are hard to read—they must be enlarged but then their large line-spacing takes so much room on screen.

[FrostByte 5469]

On 5/9/2020 at 5:37 PM, ebr said:

Hi.  It is not possible to do this at this time.  Why are you wanting to change the font?

I would like to change the font on the Android app to something which can display the music symbol correctly with text fonts.  Can't use the app currently.

[Luke 42378]

On 3/25/2026 at 8:45 AM, FrostByte said:

I would like to change the font on the Android app to something which can display the music symbol correctly with text fonts.  Can't use the app currently.

Hi, this is resolved in the next update to Emby for Android. Thanks.

[Frost24 0]

On 5/2/2026 at 4:18 AM, Luke said:

Hi, this is resolved in the next update to Emby for Android. Thanks.

Hello,

Is it actually or is there a new update coming soon ?

Because I am using the latest version of Emby for Android (3.5.32, last updated 12 April 2026), and it's not the Android TV one, but I still see rectangles instead of music notes / special characters, so it's not fixed for me I wonder why.

I feel like this is a recurring issue, I have seen old posts who have seen it fixed after an update, so maybe new updates broke the subtitles again, or else it's just a different character / encoding each time so even if it's just a music note character it could be different for everyone.

To fix it, do you add support for each special character once it's reported, or do you change the encoding or font or something like that ?

Just right now, after typing this, I went to check if maybe the tablet version was missing an update compared to the phone version, and I realized the android tablet latest version is 3.5.32 from April compared to the android phone version which is 3.5.34 from May. Maybe that's why it's not fixed for me because the update is not released on tablet yet, or maybe the tablet / phone versions are not supposed to have the same updates.

Thanks.

Edited 3 hours ago by Frost24

[Frost24 0]

On 3/25/2026 at 1:45 PM, FrostByte said:

I would like to change the font on the Android app to something which can display the music symbol correctly with text fonts.  Can't use the app currently.

Lol after reading this thread, I created a disposable account to reply quickly for the same issue.

Just realized why the Frost username came to my mind at first, it was from your username but I didn't notice it at first. 

Now I feel like a copycat. 

[Frost24 0]

38 minutes ago, Frost24 said:

Hello,

Is it actually or is there a new update coming soon ?

Because I am using the latest version of Emby for Android (3.5.32, last updated 12 April 2026), and it's not the Android TV one, but I still see rectangles instead of music notes / special characters, so it's not fixed for me I wonder why.

I feel like this is a recurring issue, I have seen old posts who have seen it fixed after an update, so maybe new updates broke the subtitles again, or else it's just a different character / encoding each time so even if it's just a music note character it could be different for everyone.

To fix it, do you add support for each special character once it's reported, or do you change the encoding or font or something like that ?

Just right now, after typing this, I went to check if maybe the tablet version was missing an update compared to the phone version, and I realized the android tablet latest version is 3.5.32 from April compared to the android phone version which is 3.5.34 from May. Maybe that's why it's not fixed for me because the update is not released on tablet yet, or maybe the tablet / phone versions are not supposed to have the same updates.

Thanks.

I think I got the reply to my own question, I checked this post from FrostByte and it was fixed for him in the new 3.5.34 update.

 

It's just not available yet on my tablet(also on Nvidia Shield as another user reported), but it's released on my phone, guess I will have to wait a few days for the update to be officially released on the store for all devices, but you can still install it externally.

Edited 3 hours ago by Frost24

[Frost24 0]

On 3/22/2026 at 4:42 PM, b0ao692mc said:

Hello there, it would be a great idea to add that feature in order to let us choose the best display font according to the TV set resolution.

Actually, the font chosen isn't the best for screen display.

 

On 3/25/2026 at 1:23 PM, b0ao692mc said:

For example, the emby app on LG smart TVs shows up a good readable font.  Actually, I don't know if that font is taken from LG's webOS system, but it's good.

The ones on emby Android and Fire TV are hard to read—they must be enlarged but then their large line-spacing takes so much room on screen.

Changing the font for everyone would be kind of easy for Emby devs I guess, but allowing everyone to select any font would probably create too many bugs and would take too much effort to maintain, subtitles are kind of messy even if they look simple, one time I had to reinstall my plex server entirely because a subtitle bug broke it and I could not play anything anymore.

I believe that's why most servers like Emby and Plex keeps some subtitles options limited for simplicity.

But it's surely possible, I have read Kodi hides it by default, but allows it once you switch to expert mode, but it would not make a difference for image subtitles and some subtitles formats which can't be changed.

Edited 2 hours ago by Frost24

[Frost24 0]

On 3/22/2026 at 4:42 PM, b0ao692mc said:

Hello there, it would be a great idea to add that feature in order to let us choose the best display font according to the TV set resolution.

Actually, the font chosen isn't the best for screen display.

But it would still be a cool feature to experiment, maybe hidden by default but available in an expert mode on the client just like in Kodi, so normal users don't risk getting more bugs by accident while some features could be tested by others.

Edited 2 hours ago by Frost24