Subject: Seeking working .ln4 unpack/repack tool + Sinhala support for Fenix 6

AselaR 15 days ago

Hello all,

I have a Garmin Fenix 6 Sapphire and I’m trying to enable display of Sinhala (සිංහල) characters in notifications (so I can read SMS/WhatsApp messages in Sinhala directly on the watch). Right now, Sinhala texts show as □□□□ or ???, because the default firmware font does not include Sinhala glyphs.

I discovered that Garmin stores each language in /GARMIN/Text/*.ln4 files, which contain both translation strings and an embedded font. My plan is:

Pick an unused language file (e.g. turkish.ln4, arabic.ln4, etc.).
Use a tool to unpack that .ln4 into its components (font + strings).
Replace the embedded font.ttf with a Sinhala-capable font (e.g. Noto Sans Sinhala).
Repack into .ln4, copy back to /GARMIN/Text, make it read-only, reboot.
Set the watch language to this “fake language” (e.g. Turkish) — so menus remain English, but notifications can render Sinhala.

My ask / help needed:

A working/unbroken tool or script (Windows/Mac) currently used for unpacking/repacking .ln4 Garmin files (especially for Fenix 6 or newer).
Step-by-step guidance specific to Fenix 6 for embedding a new Unicode font (Sinhala) into .ln4.
Any known pitfalls or watch-specific quirks (for example, file size limits, naming, making read-only, firmware updates overwriting, etc.).

If anyone has done this with Sinhala (or another script like Tamil, Hindi) on Fenix models, your pointers would be especially appreciated.

Thank you in advance for any help you can provide.

0 trux 15 days ago

On newer models, the TEXTS folder with the ln4 files is hidden, so I cannot check it with my current watch, but the ln4 files I have from older models, do not contain any fonts. Could you post a sample ln4 file from your watch with the font included?

0 AselaR 15 days ago in reply to trux

Hi trux,

Unsure how to share but I have these in a dropbox link if you can check the below please;

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/gztws26wsb6ad8rplvjsz/APBfFkMJAgYRIhUqMk0ydXY?rlkey=wqxvq7rathj8znkmu67fttmwp&dl=0

Thanks

0 trux 15 days ago in reply to AselaR

Where exactly did you see the fonts in those files? I opened several of them, both in notepad and in a hex editor, and the files contain nothing else than the translations to the respective language, with the text being in UTF8. The fact that the text is viewable on your computer, in no way means that the file contains the fonts. The fonts are on the respective device where you view the file. And since Fenix 6 has no Sinhala alphabet in its limited Unicode font tables, Sinhala texts cannot be displayed, even if you translate those texts using Sinhala alphabet.