Kindle Touch: font size issue

[ciarpame]

I waited months before posting about this issue because it seems weird to me and I thought it was just my fantasy... anyway, it seems that my Kindle Touch default 4th font size has changed.
At beginning (v4 firmware) it was my font size of choice, than during the years something happened. It's because some firmware upgrade it'sor because jailbreaking or patching?
I'm on 5.3.2.1 now, with jbpatch installed and it doesn't make difference if I enable or disable the font size patch.

This bug seems like this one (https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...postcount=1046) and it seems like I'm looking for size 10. But it's not just like I want an uncommon size and I cannot get it: I'm pretty sure I was able to use it in the past.

I had some confirmation some days ago when I had the chance to take some pictures to the new Kindle 7 gen touch. In the attached picture you can see the font size difference. On both reader I selected the 4th font size. Please look just at the font size and don't use this picture to compare other details since the Kindle 7 gen touch picture it's out of focus, I used a phone camera in uneven light conditions (my Kindle touch looked great side by side to the new basic Kindle, with a better contrast but not so much as it seems in the picture).

I would like to know I there is some way to get my font size of choice back. Maybe it's a font size issue related to 5.3.2.1 version and in newer firmware versions this issue is solved? Upgrading would be an hard choice since jbpatch hypenation and margins hack are too useful to me and jbpatch is not supported on newer firmware version.

Thanks for your help.

UPDATE: sorry, it wanted to post this message in the "Kindle Developer's Corner" subforum since it seems more appropriate to me but it made a mistake and now it seems I cannot delete this message after posting it. Any moderator can help?

[badgoodDeb]

I can't speak to your specific issue, but I've always found that some books have different base fonts, and thus read the font choices differently. On some books, I have to bump my choice up by one or two. Then, the next book will have a different "base" and I'll have to bump my preferred choice back down again.

I just assumed that was normal. (So, maybe but not necessarily answering your question, but also providing a BUMP to the topic.)

[ciarpame]

I understand and sometimes it happens to me too but it's a different issue.
I was writing about the same books having different font sizes on the same device after some update or event that I'm unable to identify. I forgot to mention that the book in the screenshot is always the Kindle user guide (even if in two different languages).

[badgoodDeb]

Ahh. Okay then. In that case, just "BUMP".

[ciarpame]

So it's just me?
Please allow me just one bump after this thread was moved in this forum. Thank you.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by ciarpame

- - - - -
At beginning (v4 firmware) it was my font size of choice, than during the years something happened. It's because some firmware upgrade it'sor because jailbreaking or patching?
I'm on 5.3.2.1 now, with jbpatch installed and it doesn't make difference if I enable or disable the font size patch.

- - - - -

I had some confirmation some days ago when I had the chance to take some pictures to the new Kindle 7 gen touch.

- - - -

You are describing three different devices, at least.

The K5 and the KT2 never ran "version 4" firmware (only the K4 did).
The K4 and the KT2 never ran "version 5.3.2.1" firmware.
The K4 and the K5 never ran "version 5.6" firmware (the only series the KT2 has ever run).

Different firmwares, different devices, so having different fonts for the selection numbers is not surprising.

Check the first four characters of the serial number (for each device) in this table:
https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kindle_Serial_Numbers

Then use the recognized names to re-describe the problem on the device or devices.

[NiLuJe]

Plus, you're using the JBPatch font size patch, which, well, allows you to set custom font sizes, so, err, it's a feature, not a bug?

[ciarpame]

Originally Posted by knc1

You are describing three different devices, at least.
The K5 and the KT2 never ran "version 4" firmware (only the K4 did).
The K4 and the KT2 never ran "version 5.3.2.1" firmware.
The K4 and the K5 never ran "version 5.6" firmware (the only series the KT2 has ever run).

I have a K5 device, I don't need to look for serial number to know that.
But you are right, issues should be reported with correct details: I (wrongly) assumed that v4 was the firmware I found on the kindle when I bought it, the one without the cover thumbsnails, this is my only mistake while trying to report this issue in the best way I could.

Anyway, I never stated the my device can run 5.6 firmware. I compared the my K5 4th font size with a KT2 4th font size device. I understand that it's not enough to state the something is wrong with my fonts but I realized that the KT2 font sizes are the ones I remember in my K5 with and older firmware and not yet jailbreaked.
I know that such a comparison makes sense only with another K5 and the same book but unfortunately I did not find one.

If you have a K5 maybe you can help me by posting a screenshot of the user guide with the 4th font size selected

[ciarpame]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

Plus, you're using the JBPatch font size patch, which, well, allows you to set custom font sizes, so, err, it's a feature, not a bug?

I used the JBPatch font hack trying to "get back" the font size I well remember but, as stated in the link I included in my post, Caecilia font size 10 (that it seems is the one I'm looking for) cannot be rendered because of a bug.
So nothing changes if I use the jbpatch font hack or not or if I use the default Caecilia font or some other Caecilia font installed as an ALT_FONT.

In a nutshell and using the jbpatch fonts measure units: size 9 is too small and size 11 is too big for me and size 10 it's just unreachable but I'm quite sure that I had size 10 once upon a time.

[NiLuJe]

FW 5.6 affected a lot of things, so comparing against something running FW 5.6 might not be a good point of reference.

That said, if you have a bit of experience with fontconfig, you could always feed it a custom config file w/ a matrix size tweak (there's an example of that in the 'extra' fontconfig shards in my fonts hack). That very much feels like hitting a nail with a very large hammer, but it does the job for me .

[ciarpame]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

you could always feed it a custom config file w/ a matrix size tweak (there's an example of that in the 'extra' fontconfig shards in my fonts hack). That very much feels like hitting a nail with a very large hammer, but it does the job for me .

Great, let's go with the large hammer!

• Installed Update_linkfonts_0.10.N_install_touch_pw.bin (python installation skipped because I already have the screensaver hack installed)
• Edited 99-tweaks.conf (changed font name to "Caecilia" and size multiplier to 1.3 (I just want to see some effect as a first result, I will fine tune later)
• moved 99-tweaks.conf in conf.d folder
• copied Caecilia font files to linkfonts/fonts (it's a K4 version I've used with USE_ALT_FONTS methods, bolder than the K5 default one) and renamed the fonts folder in root.
• update font config cache via KUAL

But after the restart the font size did not change.
Then I found that I still have the USE_ALT_FONTS from the root, I deleted it, another "update font config cache" but the font size is still unchanged.

What I'm missing? Thanks for your help.

[NiLuJe]

That Caecilia is handled in a very weird manner by the framework, so you may have to play around a bit (try either with "Caecilia Regular" or "serif" as the family name). Using a custom version of it will probably lead to inconsistent results, so I also wouldn't recommend that at first (unless it's heavily modified to have a different family name, and I mean that in terms of metadata. Filenames are irrelevant here, and you in fact don't need to touch them in any way ).

You actually need the USE_ALT_FONTS stuff if you want to populate the Aa menu. But no matter, the hack handles that for you (i.e., you'll find that the file will have been recreated by the hack if you restart your device).

[ciarpame]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

That Caecilia is handled in a very weird manner by the framework, so you may have to play around a bit (try either with "Caecilia Regular" or "serif" as the family name). Using a custom version of it will probably lead to inconsistent results, so I also wouldn't recommend that at first

So if I want to change the default Caecilia font sizes I have to leave the linkfonts/fonts folder empty by removing the K4 Caecilia fonts and try the couple of font name variants in the .conf file.

I will try when back at home, Thank you.

UPDATE: using "Caecilia Regular" did the trick, thank you very much

[NiLuJe]

Yay .

I usually resort to this kind of trickery with CFF fonts and their print-centric metrics, in order to avoid having wildly varying font sizes between TTF and CFF fonts, but, hey, it's also a very roundabout way of tweaking font sizes in general ^^.