Troubleshooting PW embedded fonts?

[morrow]

I was under the understanding that a feature of paperwhite was that it recognizes embedded fonts from ebooks. I decided to gave it a test, and even though the resulting font was shown on sigil and calibre, however when it was converted and transferred to paperwhite, it doesn't show the new font. My question is, did do something wrong or paperwhite simply does not have this feature.

note: the font I used was from dafont.com.
note 2: even though the font was shown, when I validate the file in sigil, it had this error "the resource is present in the OPF <manifest>, but is unreachable (it's unused)", the line is "N/A" and the file is "OEBPS/Fonts/plainblack.otf".

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by morrow

I decided to gave it a test, and even though the resulting font was shown on sigil and calibre, however when it was converted and transferred to paperwhite, it doesn't show the new font.

The font was shown, because it was installed on your system.

Originally Posted by morrow

My question is, did do something wrong or paperwhite simply does not have this feature.

You most likely simply added the font to the font folder and forgot to add the necessary code to the stylesheet and/or didn't link the stylesheet to the .html file(s). For more information see the Sigil online help.

[joehunt]

Originally Posted by morrow

I was under the understanding that a feature of paperwhite was that it recognizes embedded fonts from ebooks. I decided to gave it a test, and even though the resulting font was shown on sigil and calibre, however when it was converted and transferred to paperwhite, it doesn't show the new font. My question is, did do something wrong or paperwhite simply does not have this feature.

In Calibre are you converting the ebook to azw3?

[morrow]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

The font was shown, because it was installed on your system.

Actually, the font is not installed on my computer, I only downloaded to test on this epub.

I followed this sigil start guide to a T I believe, I'll post some screenshots see if I did anything wrong.

This is the css style code:



p.s I have also tried removing the ".../Fonts" with same result.

this is how it should look:



this is the font:



and this is the error from validate:

[astmario]

Why don't you just use Calibre?
When converting to AZW3, go to Look & Feel tab and under Embed font family chose a font, installed on computer or add your own, it doesn't matter.

[Padde]

Try surrounding the Path of the Font with quotation marks.

src: url("../Fonts/plainblack.otf")

[Doitsu]

@Padde enclosing it in quotation marks doesn't make a difference. This looks like a Sigl FlightCrew bug, because ePubcheck online doesn't report any issues.

Originally Posted by morrow

Actually, the font is not installed on my computer, I only downloaded to test on this epub.

It looks like you found a Sigil bug. I just did a quick test and I got the same error message. However, the official ePubcheck validator didn't find any problems, and the .ePub file displayed fine in ADE.

Since the error message was no longer displayed, when I moved the CSS code from the <style> section to a separate .css file and linked it to the .html file this is most likely a Sigil/FlightCrew bug.

Also when I compiled my test file with KindleGen the embedded font was displayed in KP and it also displayed fine on my K3.

If the embedded font didn't show up on your PW, it might be because:
- you used the Kindle Cloud, which doesn't support KF8 yet, instead of USB to transfer the file
- you converted the .ePub file with Calibre to a .mobi file instead of an .azw3 file
- the Publisher Font option is disabled on your PW

[morrow]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

If the embedded font didn't show up on your PW, it might be because:
- you used the Kindle Cloud, which doesn't support KF8 yet, instead of USB to transfer the file
- you converted the .ePub file with Calibre to a .mobi file instead of an .azw3 file
- the Publisher Font option is disabled on your PW

Test my .mobi file with your PW. It should show a different font for the first letter.

I see the reason why it didn't show up was the file was mobi and not azw3. Just checked on paperwhite and the font shown up fine, however there is another problem, the first letter is not "big" as I wanted to be (not just big that pushes other letters away, but big to have other letters go around it. Like the picture shows). Is there a solution for that also?

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by morrow

I see the reason why it didn't show up was the file was mobi and not azw3. Just checked on paperwhite and the font shown up fine, however there is another problem, the first letter is not "big" as I wanted to be (not just big that pushes other letters away, but big to have other letters go around it. Like the picture shows). Is there a solution for that also?

There are lots of solutions. Just search the mobi and epub forums for dropcaps or use the recommended dropcaps style from the Kindle Publishing Guidelines.

[jswinden]

I had never tried to make a ePub or KF8 with an embedded font, so out of curiosity I made one yesterday. I used an existing ePub book and added the font via Sigil to create the ePub, then used Kindle Previewer to create one KF8 book (mobi extension) and calibre to create a second KF8 book (AZW3 extension) from the ePub.

The epub works very well in the Sony Reader on my PC. The epub also works very well in Bluefire on my iPad3. It does not show the embedded font in iBooks though. I used iTunes 10.x to load the book to both Bluefire and iBooks. I don't have an ePub reader on my Fire HD so I haven't checked it there yet.

The KF8 book with mobi extension created with Kindle Previewer works well on my Kindle Touch, though the embedded font renders poorly. This book was side loaded via USB cable connection.

I also side loaded to my Kindle Fire HD via USB cable connection both the KF8 book with mobi extension and the KF8 book with AZW3 extension. Neither of these show the embedded font on the Fire HD. I do NOT get the "Use Publisher Font" option in either book version. Has anyone got embedded fonts in a side loaded book to work on the Fire HD?

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by jswinden

The epub works very well in the Sony Reader on my PC. The epub also works very well in Bluefire on my iPad3. It does not show the embedded font in iBooks though.

AFAIK, you'll need to add a special file for iPads to force iBooks to display the embedded font.

Originally Posted by jswinden

I also side loaded to my Kindle Fire HD via USB cable connection both the KF8 book with mobi extension and the KF8 book with AZW3 extension.

If it's a free font, create a small test .epub with this font and post it and the .mobi and .azw3 files that you generated to the mobi forum. Also it couldn't hurt to embed a different font for test purposes to exclude font problems.

[jswinden]

I bought the book through Amazon, liberated it, and added the font. Since it is a purchased book I cannot and would not post it.

It is no big deal, I was just curious if embedded fonts worked within side loaded books on the Kindle Fire HD. The books obviously are created correctly as they work on various devices. The fact that it works correctly on the Kindle Touch tells me the KF8 generated by Kindle Previewer converted correctly.

The font is PMN Caecilia 85 Heavy.

EDIT: @Doitsu I added the com.apple.ibooks.display-options.xml file to the ePub and it now works in iBooks. Unfortunately all the font sizes for this book are way too big. I'll have to research that, but the CSS file that came with the book was way over formatted so no telling what all they put in it!

[jswinden]

Just FYI to anyone interested, embedded fonts in side loaded KF8 books will work on the Kindle Fire HD but there are exceptions.

If the embedded font is referenced only within the BODY tag, the font will display on most eInk Kindles and K4PC. This method also works for ePubs. However, it will NOT display on the Kindle Fire HD. I'm not sure which tags will work and which won't, but I did get it to work by referencing the embedded font(s) in a Class and assigning that Class to a P tag.