Fonts

RootNative UI uses platform-default fonts out of the box — Roboto on Android, System (San Francisco) on iOS, and the system font stack on web. You can replace these with any custom font.

Quick setup with createMaterialTheme

The easiest way to use a custom font is the fontFamily option on createMaterialTheme:

import { createMaterialTheme } from '@rootnative/core/create-theme'
import { ThemeProvider } from '@rootnative/core'

const { lightTheme, darkTheme } = createMaterialTheme('#006A6A', {
  fontFamily: 'Inter',
})

export default function App() {
  return (
    <ThemeProvider theme={lightTheme}>
      {/* All text uses Inter */}
    </ThemeProvider>
  )
}

This applies the font to all 30 MD3 typography styles at once — the 15 base roles (display, headline, title, body, label) and their 15 emphasized counterparts.

Loading fonts in Expo

Before using a custom font, you need to load it. Expo provides two approaches:

Using expo-font (recommended)

npx expo install expo-font

// app/_layout.tsx
import { useFonts } from 'expo-font'
import { Slot } from 'expo-router'
import { ThemeProvider } from '@rootnative/core'
import { createMaterialTheme } from '@rootnative/core/create-theme'

const { lightTheme } = createMaterialTheme('#006A6A', {
  fontFamily: 'Inter',
})

export default function RootLayout() {
  const [fontsLoaded] = useFonts({
    Inter: require('../assets/fonts/Inter-Regular.ttf'),
    'Inter-Medium': require('../assets/fonts/Inter-Medium.ttf'),
    'Inter-Bold': require('../assets/fonts/Inter-Bold.ttf'),
  })

  if (!fontsLoaded) return null

  return (
    <ThemeProvider theme={lightTheme}>
      <Slot />
    </ThemeProvider>
  )
}

Using Google Fonts

npx expo install @expo-google-fonts/inter expo-font

// app/_layout.tsx
import { useFonts, Inter_400Regular, Inter_500Medium } from '@expo-google-fonts/inter'
import { Slot } from 'expo-router'
import { ThemeProvider } from '@rootnative/core'
import { createMaterialTheme } from '@rootnative/core/create-theme'

const { lightTheme } = createMaterialTheme('#006A6A', {
  fontFamily: 'Inter_400Regular',
})

export default function RootLayout() {
  const [fontsLoaded] = useFonts({
    Inter_400Regular,
    Inter_500Medium,
  })

  if (!fontsLoaded) return null

  return (
    <ThemeProvider theme={lightTheme}>
      <Slot />
    </ThemeProvider>
  )
}

Note: When using @expo-google-fonts, the fontFamily value must match the exact export name (e.g. Inter_400Regular, not Inter).

Different fonts per weight

If your font files use separate family names per weight (common with Google Fonts), you can override individual typography styles:

import { lightTheme } from '@rootnative/core'
import type { Theme } from '@rootnative/core'

const theme: Theme = {
  ...lightTheme,
  typography: {
    ...lightTheme.typography,
    // Display and headline styles use regular weight
    displayLarge: { ...lightTheme.typography.displayLarge, fontFamily: 'Inter_400Regular' },
    displayMedium: { ...lightTheme.typography.displayMedium, fontFamily: 'Inter_400Regular' },
    // Title and label styles use medium weight
    titleLarge: { ...lightTheme.typography.titleLarge, fontFamily: 'Inter_500Medium' },
    titleMedium: { ...lightTheme.typography.titleMedium, fontFamily: 'Inter_500Medium' },
    labelLarge: { ...lightTheme.typography.labelLarge, fontFamily: 'Inter_500Medium' },
  },
}

Combining with other options

fontFamily works alongside other createMaterialTheme options:

const { lightTheme, darkTheme } = createMaterialTheme('#006A6A', {
  fontFamily: 'Inter',
  roundness: 0.5, // Slightly rounded corners
})

Platform defaults

When no fontFamily is specified, RootNative UI uses:

Platform	Default font
Android	Roboto
iOS	System (San Francisco)
Web	System font stack (-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, ...)