Khmer Font on Sony Xperia Z

If you are a Cambodian person using an Android device, I highly recommend Khmer Standard Keyboard (or try Khmer Standard Keyboard Small Screen for mobile). Once you install one of these apps, go to Settings >Language & input > Default and enter Khmer Standard Keyboard as the default keyboard. The Khmer keyboard should show up whenever you type. The keyboard has a button on the bottom-left that allows you to toggle from an English keyboard to a Khmer keyboard.

If you go to a Khmer website like rfa.org/khmer, you can see Khmer text rendered on the website and, if you are Cambodian, you can read in Khmer on this site. This works for my Firefox browser on my desktop, the Nexus 5, and the Samsung Galaxy S4, as well as many other devices.

However, when you go to rfa.org/khmer using a Sony Xperia Z, the Khmer text does not show up!

This was extremely frustrating. I spent many hours trying to get Khmer font to show up but nothing worked. All the websites kept telling me to root the phone, but rooting the phone can void your warrantly, so it's best not to do that.

I finally got around the problem by installing Firefox for Android and then searching for add-ons and then installing Khmer Fonts Package. This seemed to fix everything up. Khmer text still does not appear on Chrome browser and other apps but it does show up in the Firefox browser, which means you can do a Google search in Khmer and read Khmer websites.

There are a few other apps that seem to show Khmer text on the Xperia Z, e.g. Khmer SMS, Kohsantepheap Daily, and even Google Translate.

Khmer translator for Android with Khmer fonts

I have Khmer parents who don't speak English well. My Khmer is not as great ad my English, so communicating with them has always been difficult.

When I learned that Google Translate would now support Khmer, I celebrated because now I can use Google Translate to communicate with my parents.

Unfortunately, when I install Google Translate on my Android phone, the Khmer translation shows up using the Roman alphabet because Google Translate does not support Khmer text. This is a bummer since it means I will mot be able to show my parents the Khmer text. They cannot read the Roman alphabet well.

This problem was fixed simply by installing another app from the Google Play store called Instalator. This app is powered by Google Translate but in versions of Android greater than 4.0 it supports Khmer text. It is perfect.