Use system font

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1

Hi,

Could we add an option to use system font (SF Pro and SF Mono)? The new typography setting is great except when you want to use system font. :sweat_smile:

I noticed other apps, such as Drafts, providing similar typography setting has a separate toggle to use system font.

Thank you!

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fyi, you can download SF fonts from https://developer.apple.com/fonts/ and import them into FontBook then select them in Bear.

In iOS you need to download a dedicated App, but it works too.

I agree that a system font toggle would be nice, even though I prefer BearSans.

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Thank you, @SebiK!

I did try this approach. It worked well on the Mac. However on the iOS, I couldn’t install the bundled SF Pro.ttf (used iFont; it said fonts contain variations are supported) and could only install SF Pro Display and SF Pro Text. I set SF Pro Display for heading and SF Pro Text for body text according to Apple’s guideline but it looks somewhat funky.

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I would like to see the FONT used in the editor to also be the FONT used in the PDF export.

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+1 for this. Bear 1 allowed San Francisco as a font option and now with more font options in Bear 2, San Francisco is no longer an option!

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Just download the font SF Pro from Apple’s website and you can choose San Francisco again (SF Pro). https://developer.apple.com/fonts/

Edit: Ok, I just see that was mentioned several times in the other thread.

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How would you install SF on iOS?

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That’s a great tip, but there’s more to it than that, at least if you’re a nitpicker like me. iOS and macOS have system fonts that have specific tracking values (= letter spacing) based on font size. If you install a custom font, I’m not sure it can inherit the tracking values like the system font does.

SF Pro you shared looks OK on macOS, but iOS font profiles don’t support variable fonts like SF Pro. On iOS, you’d have to install ‘SF Pro Text’ and ‘SF Pro Display’ fonts (don’t even remember where I found those), but those look off as the tracking is “wrong.”

It would be just way easier and more visually consistent if Bear supported system font option.

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Apple says about SF Pro “This neutral, flexible, sans-serif typeface is the system font for iOS, iPadOS, macOS and tvOS”. So it is indeed the font of iOS.
Regarding tracking values: I was not aware of that.
I have ‘SF Pro Text’ and ‘SF Pro Display’ installed as well. Maybe Apple removed it from its website?
But actually I find the Bear standard font quite good.

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Yes SF Pro is the font of iOS, that developers can use in their apps through code, but you can’t download that font and install it into iOS as a custom font because it’s a “variable font” and iOS’s installation method doesn’t support variable fonts. Is this making more sense? The site even offers only a .pkg installer for macOS.

But yeah I agree that I also like the Bear default font a lot, and it looks more cohesive as the whole UI is also using the Bear font.

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Somebody has published SF Pro Display on Github https://github.com/sahibjotsaggu/San-Francisco-Pro-Fonts

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“SF Pro Display” and “SF Pro Text” are static versions of “SF Pro”, which is a variable font. They aren’t interchangeable. (See also: iOS Should Support Variable Fonts)

My biggest grip with using the Bear Sans UI font is that it seems to be one size smaller than the “standard” fonts such as SF Pro. If I only write in English, that’s not a problem since I can just adjust the font size. However I write in both English and Chinese and the Chinese characters look larger than the English letters.

I’m currently getting by with Helvetica Neue on iOS. Not ideal since it makes everything looks less modern.

The devs must be swarmed with the launch but I’m hopeful to see system fonts officially supported a little ways down the road.

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