The Kindle book "Sign Language for Everyone: A Basic Course in Communication with the Deaf" has an unusual font (as pointed out by rflashman here (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=123919&postcount=110)).

I enclose screenshots of this publication and also HarryT's Dickens, Charles: A Tale of Two Cities (Illustrated). v2, 24 Dec 2007 (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17594). The latter as an example of the standard font (Caecilia). These are on the 4th font size, to make the fonts easy to see. These are actual dumps of the screen, using Alt-Shift-G see Hacking the Kindle part 3: root shell and runtime system (http://igorsk.blogspot.com/2007/12/hacking-kindle-part-3-root-shell-and.html).

Nelson Books are forcing left justification (usually considered bad practice, because it removes user choice), but they also have a different font from usual and a narrower line spacing. The lowercase e and g are particularly different in the two fonts. It is possible to specify a specific font in the MobiPocket format, but you have to know its exact name and I'm not sure how to force line spacing within a MobiPocket e-book. If the book was DRM-free then it would be easy to see how this is done, but as it is I am in the dark.

That left picture looks almost as though it's a scanned image to me. Is that possible?

It does look ragged, but I think it is reflowable. No matter where in the e-book I switch fonts the original first word stays at the top of the page. This would not be possible if the book consisted of 6 versions of scanned pages (one per font size).

I just noticed that the e-book is not a MOBI format file at all. It has extension .azw1 and starts with the characters TPZ0. It may include an embedded font, since I see several plain text words with "glyph" in them.

Interesting - I didn't know that the Kindle supported any format (other than PDF) in which one could embed fonts! Anyone know what the format actually is?

I also have bought books that were using different fonts and weren't scanned .pdf. The reflow worked, the changing justification options (left and full justified) worked, and the dictionary option worked. They were also really clear--as opposed to some of the scanned .pdf books they have.

So my theory is that they do have some kind of capability somewhere/somehow to embed different fonts, but I can't find any info at all.

Now if the books really are just scanned .pdfs, then they are the best job I have ever seen. Crystal-clear, reflowable text.

I also have bought books that were using different fonts and weren't scanned .pdf.

So my theory is that they do have some kind of capability somewhere/somehow to embed different fonts, but I can't find any info at all. Do these files have the extension .azw1?

Under Windows, you may need to change a directory option to see the filename extension in the detailed view (or perhaps look in properties for the file).

Do these files have the extension .azw1?

Under Windows, you may need to change a directory option to see the filename extension in the detailed view (or perhaps look in properties for the file).

Yes, they are .azw1. Hmmm, the plot thickens.

TPZ is abbreviation of "Topaz", which seems to be Kindle's native eBook format. There is a parser for it inside Kindle but I didn't realize there are actually books available in it. Thanks for noticing this, I'll investigate some more.

Can you list more samples of azw1 books? The one discussed is not available for Kindle anymore...

The Kindle book "Sign Language for Everyone: A Basic Course in Communication with the Deaf" has an unusual font (as pointed out by rflashman here (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=123919&postcount=110)).
The font on the left is ITC Souvenir: http://www.linotype.com/802/itcsouvenir-family.html
______
Dennis

Almost all the Springer math books come with a non-native fontsetting. The file types are AZW1 and the corresponding files are *.tan instead of *.mbp. They are reflowable. However I still suspect if it is an embedded font since the same letter has different appearances in different locations.

On a separate note, it would be really great if AZW1/TPZ does support embedded font. If that's the case, we could potentially support non-latin characters without hacking the kindle. For example, I can always read PDF with embedded Chinese font on Sony 505 without any real hacking.