[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Without jailbreaking, is there a way of making a different font the default?

No, even changing the default on a jailbroke is not trivial. Requires best to my knowledge a deep reconfiguration of fontconfig. Hiding fonts that you don't intend to use is rather simple in comparison. The easiest to change the fall back for Times New Roman would appear to just install a font with that name (have not tested that though).

What I can tell from reading the config files is this:

• all common fonts (post-script, microsoft, ...) get grouped together that fonts that are similar are considered the same, with one font beeing the fall back
• each of those groups get classified a generic like serif, san-serif or monospace (san-serif is beeing used when everything else fails)
• those generics are then assigned a priority list of which fonts to use in case such a generic is to be used

So for the case of Times New Roman it goes something like this (in that order pretty much and on Paperwhite):

• Times New Roman gets grouped together with other fonts/groups:
  Times New Roman (fallback)
  Liberation Serif
  Thorndale
  Thorndale AMT
• Times New Roman(MS) and Times(PS) get assigned fallback for each other
• Times New Roman gets assigned the generic classification of serif among other fonts (Bitstream Vera Serif, DejaVu Serif, Liberation Serif, Times New Roman, Times, Nimbus Roman No9 L, Luxi Serif, Thorndale AMT, Thorndale)
• actually installed fonts on the PW get added to serif (Palatino, Baskerville, condensed, Caecilia Regular, Kindle Symbol, TBMincho, HYMyeongJo, Song S, Song T, Code2000)
• serif gets this priority list:
  Caecilia Regular
  Kindle Symbol
  TBMincho
  HYMyeongJo
  Song S
  Song T
  Code2000

Now if a book requests Times New Roman it will rattle through the list top to bottom until it finds a match of a font that is installed. Remember that by the time it falls back to Caecilia, the name Caecila Regular itself is not a single font any more, but a group.

In short, if you wanted to change the fall-back font of Times New Roman, it is much easier to simply INSTALL a font with family Times New Roman and be done with it.