A guide for customizing the system-wide font on the Wii U.


Custom system font shown in this screenshot is "Pop Happiness".
Download the custom system fonts here

Getting Started

Aroma custom firmware is required to use the mod. Install CFW if you haven’t already.

No system files are modified in the process. The custom system font is loaded into RAM only.

What you need:

Merging the Fonts

A Wii U font will be merged into a custom system font so the icon glyphs are preserved.

  1. Launch FontForge.

  2. Open the custom font file (TTF/OTF).

  3. Go to Element → Font Info... → General.

  4. Set the Em Size value to 1000 and click OK. The custom font size will be adjusted so it matches the Wii U font size. Skip if em size is already 1,000.

  5. Go to View → Goto, input U+E000 into the text box to jump to the Private Use Area block.

  6. If the custom font contains any non-Wii U glyphs in the PUA block, go to File → Execute Script, input this code into the text box:

     fontforge.activeFont().selection.select(("ranges", None), 0xE000, 0xE099)
 fontforge.activeFont().clear()

    and click OK. This will clear out all the non-Wii U glyphs in this block.

  7. Go to Element → Merge Fonts... and select the Wii U font file.

  8. Click Yes when prompted to retain kerning info.

  9. Go to File → Generate Fonts....

  10. Pick TrueType in the combo-box, uncheck Validate Before Saving, then click Generate.

  11. On a File Explorer window, open the generated font file.

    • Make sure the outlines format is TrueType Outlines. If it’s PostScript Outlines, you must generate a font as TTF.

    • TrueType or OpenType on the window title bar doesn’t matter, as long as its outlines format is TrueType Outlines.

Installing the Custom System Font to Wii U

  1. Add the merged font file to SDCARD:/wiiu/fonts.

  2. Open the Plugin menu (L + D-Pad ↓ + Select).

  3. Go to System Font Replacer.

  4. Select the merged font file for Standard font.

  5. Disable Use custom fonts only for Wii U Menu to apply the font system-wide.

  6. Reboot the console.

  7. The custom system font has been installed!

Installing the Custom System Font to Cemu

You can also install the custom system font to Cemu emulator.

  1. Rename the merged font file to CafeStd.ttf.

  2. Launch Cemu.

  3. Go to File → Open MLC folder.

  4. Navigate to /sys/title/0005001b/10042400/content. Create folders if those don’t exist.

  5. Add the CafeStd.ttf file here.

  6. Launch any of the system apps (if installed) and see how the custom system font looks.

Do not add the CafeStd.ttf file to /Cemu/resources/sharedFonts, those are replacement system fonts which are used if the real system fonts don't exist.
Any custom/real system font files placed in this folder will be overwritten with replacement ones after Cemu updates.