How to import and use a custom font in a material-ui theme?

Question

I'm trying to import and use the Yellowtail font (from Google Fonts) in my React app in a Material-UI theme.

As far as i know all google fonts are on npm, I've installed it, with the

npm install typeface-yellowtail --save

command.

I have imported it in App.js, put it in the font-family part of the theme, passed the theme to the MuiThemeProvider, but it does not work. What did I miss?

This is what i have inside of App.js (header contains an AppBar with some grids and body contains only an h1 text for testing)

import React, { Component, Fragment } from 'react';
import Header from './Components/Layouts/Header';
import AppBody from './Components/Layouts/AppBody';
import Footer from './Components/Layouts/Footer'; 
import { MuiThemeProvider, createMuiTheme } from '@material-ui/core';
import 'typeface-yellowtail';

const theme = createMuiTheme({  
  typography: {
    fontFamily: 
      '"Yellowtail", cursive',
  },
});

class App extends Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <MuiThemeProvider theme={theme}>
        <Header />
        <AppBody />
        <Footer />       
      </MuiThemeProvider>
    );
  }
}

export default App;

Solution 1

Instead of installing via npm, you can just first load CSS file.

@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Yellowtail&display=swap');

Import this CSS file

import './assets/css/yellowtail.css';

Now you don't need to use any @font-face. This can be used with font families like normal.

Solution 2

You are missing three things:

• Import the npm package as something
• Use the CssBaseline component
• Add an override to the object provided to createMuiTheme()

See example:

import React, { Component, Fragment } from 'react';
import Header from './Components/Layouts/Header';
import AppBody from './Components/Layouts/AppBody';
import Footer from './Components/Layouts/Footer'; 
import { MuiThemeProvider, createMuiTheme, CssBaseline } from '@material-ui/core';
import yellowtail from 'typeface-yellowtail';

const theme = createMuiTheme({  
  typography: {
    fontFamily: 
      '"Yellowtail", cursive',
  },
  overrides: {
    MuiCssBaseline: {
      '@global': {
        '@font-face': [yellowtail],
      },
    },
  },
});

class App extends Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <MuiThemeProvider theme={theme}>
        <CssBaseline />
        <Header />
        <AppBody />
        <Footer />       
      </MuiThemeProvider>
    );
  }
}

export default App;

Example CodeSandbox (MUI v3): https://codesandbox.io/s/late-pond-gqql4?file=/index.js

Example CodeSandbox (MUI v4): https://codesandbox.io/s/pensive-monad-eqwlx?file=/index.js

Notes

• MuiThemeProvider changed to ThemeProvider in the transition from Material-UI v3 to v4. If you are on v4, this is the only change needed - this example code otherwise works on both versions.

• You must wrap text in Material-UI's Typography component for the font to be used.

Solution 3

Update: Since @ekkis mentioned I'm adding further details on how to include the Google Font. The following answer assumes you're using Material UI v4.10.1

1. Install the gatsby-plugin-web-font-loader to install Google font.

2. Edit gatsby-config.js to include the plugin and the Google font.

module.exports = {
  plugins:      [
    {
      resolve: "gatsby-plugin-web-font-loader",
      options: {
        google: {
          families: ["Domine", "Work Sans", "Happy Monkey", "Merriweather", "Open Sans", "Lato", "Montserrat"]
        }
      }
    },
  ]
}

3. To use the font, create a file called theme.js in src/components

import {
  createMuiTheme,
  responsiveFontSizes
} from "@material-ui/core/styles"

let theme = createMuiTheme({
  typography: {
    fontFamily: [
                  "Work Sans",
                  "serif"
                ].join(","),
    fontSize:   18,
  }
})

// To use responsive font sizes, include the following line
theme     = responsiveFontSizes(theme)

export default theme

4. Now that you've the theme export, you can use it in your components.

5. Import theme on to your components. Let's say <Layout /> is your main component.

// src/components/layout.js

/**
 * External
 */
import React from "react"
import PropTypes from "prop-types"
import {
  ThemeProvider
} from "@material-ui/styles"
import { Typography } from "@material-ui/core"

/**
 * Internal
 */
import theme from "./theme"

const Layout = ({ children }) => {

  return (
    <>
      <ThemeProvider theme={theme}>
        <Typography variant="body1">Hello World!</Typography>
      </ThemeProvider>
    </>
  )
}

6. To use Google font in other components, just use

<Typography ...>Some Text</Typography> 

As long as these components use as their parent, these components will continue to use the Google Font. Hope this helps.

---

Old Answer:

Place your text in the Typography component to reflect the Google Font you installed via npm

import { Typography } from "@material-ui/core"

Assume you have some text in <AppBody>

<AppBody>
    Hello World!
</AppBody>

The above text should now be changed to

<AppBody>
    <Typography variant="body1">Hello World!</Typography>
</AppBody>

Refer Material UI docs for the different variants.

Solution 4

There is a much easier way of doing this that doesn't require a .css file or installing any extra packages.

If your font is available over a CDN like Google Fonts then just imported into the root HTML file of your app:

<link
  href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Yellowtail&display=swap"
  rel="stylesheet"
/>

Then add one line in the Material-UI theme:

const theme = createTheme({
  typography: { fontFamily: ["Yellowtail", "cursive"].join(",") }
});

Working codesandbox example with Material-UI v5.

View more solutions

Comments

[boglarkaszell]

Thank you for your help! I wanted to avoid this approach, hence i'd like to work with the style settings provided by material-ui.

[ekkis]

your code doesn't work. where is CssBaseLine defined? and what kind of font has no extension (i.e. typeface-yellowtail)? and ThemeProvider doesn't exist in v4 but MuiThemeProvider does

[ekkis]

and where does yellowtail.css come from and what does it contain?

[psychedelicious]

@ekkis I believe you are mistaken about ThemeProvider... See the v4 documentation here: material-ui.com/customization/theming And see the v3 documentation here: material-ui.com/customization/theming

[psychedelicious]

@ekkis I somehow didn't get the import for CssBaseline in the answer, I have edited it. It is a component provided by Material-UI: material-ui.com/api/css-baseline/#cssbaseline-api typeface-yellowtail is an NPM package, not a font file. The OP has installed it using npm install typeface-yellowtail --save, per the question.

[ekkis]

thank you for the additions, which help for those who haven't done this before. much better!

[Megajin]

Careful! If the client has a slow internet connection, the loaded font will take a while. This method requires a separate HTTP request to Googles CDN. Until the request is completed, the fonts will fallback to a standard font.

[BackSlashHaine]

And how did you do if its a premium purchased .otf files without any CDN ?

[Joel Rummel]

This is vastly easier than many of the other answers on the web that involve installation of packages.