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Old 02-24-2011, 10:06 PM   #1
JohnnyRocks
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Favorite Custom Installed Font on your Sony Reader

I'm wondering, for those of you who have installed custom fonts, which one you are using presently. I'm assuming if you have installed it custom, that you feel it's an upgrade over the default Sony installed font. I would love to get a nice thread going which will help me, and hopefully anyone else considering installing custom fonts, decide which way to go, or at the very least, where to start in their testing.
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Old 02-25-2011, 07:43 AM   #2
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Minion Pro Condensed Medium is a great font, though it is not free.

I use it by editing the stylesheet of epub files using a font size of 1.0225 and line height of 1.045. On my 950 reader at the small font size this results in a maximum of 43 lines of text. On a 650, this would be 33 lines.
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Old 02-25-2011, 08:46 AM   #3
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Lexia DaMa was recommended to me by Ripplinger. I like it. Significant upgrade over the default Sony font.
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Old 02-25-2011, 10:22 AM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by duncann View Post
Minion Pro Condensed Medium is a great font, though it is not free.

I use it by editing the stylesheet of epub files using a font size of 1.0225 and line height of 1.045. On my 950 reader at the small font size this results in a maximum of 43 lines of text. On a 650, this would be 33 lines.
Sorry for the silly question, but how do you actually change the font? I know you say "edit the stylesheet", but how exactly are you doing this? I see on calibre there is an option "tweak epub" if you right-click on a specific book, which then breaks the epub up and I see a .css file. Is this what you are talking about? When I opened it up I see a bunch of instances where it says Calibre, with formatting after. Sorry just so confused as to how to do this and I can not seem to find any guides explaining the process. Thank you
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Old 02-25-2011, 11:34 AM   #5
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I use Charis SIL, as recommended (somewhere) in this forum

@mcorsi take a look at this https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36361
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Old 02-25-2011, 12:12 PM   #6
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Originally Posted by mcorsi View Post
Sorry for the silly question, but how do you actually change the font? I know you say "edit the stylesheet", but how exactly are you doing this? I see on calibre there is an option "tweak epub" if you right-click on a specific book, which then breaks the epub up and I see a .css file. Is this what you are talking about? When I opened it up I see a bunch of instances where it says Calibre, with formatting after. Sorry just so confused as to how to do this and I can not seem to find any guides explaining the process. Thank you
Yea, that's the file I'm editing. I don't have any custom firmware on my reader so I do the other method of changing fonts. If you search the forum, you can find how to do this; there's lots of post about it. Keep in mind that changing fonts this way only works on epubs without drm.

I go a bit further than just putting information in the extra css box in Calibre though. I find that a lot of epubs (even purchased from a publisher) are formatted quite badly. So I usually end up editing the html files along with the style sheet. The programs I use are Ultraedit (very useful for editing html and css code), Reader Library (to get the closest approximation of how it will look on the reader without actually putting it on the reader), Calibre (for fixing quotes -- making them smart quotes -- and hyphens, and for metadata info), rarely Sigil, 7zip, and xyplorer (file manager). All this takes some effort but I can usually get the book to look exactly how I want it.

As far as knowledge about css and html, I really only have a very basic understanding, gleaned from searching the internet. It's really not that difficult, but to me the time spent is worth it because I can tailor my reading experience to exactly how I want it.
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Old 02-25-2011, 01:43 PM   #7
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As JohnnyRocks already said, my preferred font is LexiaDaMa after doing tests with quite a few different fonts, followed up by Verdana. I use custom viewing settings to darken the text further on the reader, and while some fonts generally looked good, once the custom settings are made, they can show rough edges, or letters not lined up as they should be. But these 2 fonts don't have those problems and are perfect for my use (read as "perfect for my poor eyesight" ).
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Old 02-25-2011, 01:53 PM   #8
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https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...ght=constantia

That is an EXCELLENT thread with ALOT of recommendations, many of them seconded and sometimes thirded (is that even a word). Some of the common themes as far as favorites in those threads, which will give me a starting point for testing are:

Georgia
Fontin
Gentium
Droid Serif
Chaparral Pro
Minion (someone specifically mentioned the pro condenssed medium)
Arno Pro
Garamond Premier Pro
Scala
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Old 02-25-2011, 04:55 PM   #9
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I now tested every single one of the fonts listed directly above, and, to be honest, my favorite, in terms of readability, is the Lexia DaMa.
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Old 02-26-2011, 02:45 PM   #10
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I use SegoeUI and make it bold. I accomplish this using the method where you create a font folder on the Reader and reference it with CSS, as follows:

Code:
@font-face {
  font-family: "Segoe UI";
  font-weight: normal;
  font-style: normal;
  src: url(res:///Data/fonts/segoeuib.ttf);
}

@font-face {
  font-family: "Segoe UI";
  font-weight: bold;
  font-style: normal;
  src: url(res:///Data/fonts/segoeuib.ttf);
}

@font-face {
  font-family: "Segoe UI";
  font-weight: normal;
  font-style: italic;
  src: url(res:///Data/fonts/segoeuiz.ttf);
}

@font-face {
  font-family: "Segoe UI";
  font-weight: bold;
  font-style: italic;
  src: url(res:///Data/fonts/segoeuiz.ttf);
}

body { font-family: "Segoe UI", sans serif; }

If you are using the method where you create a font folder on the Reader and reference it with CSS, you can actually use multiple fonts to replace the Sony system font. For example, you could use the following CSS to replace the Sony font with four font families:
  • Arial Rounded MT Bold for normal text
  • Arial Black for normal bolded text
  • Arial for italic text
  • SegoeUI for italic bold text

Code:
@font-face {
  font-family: "W5JCK";
  font-weight: normal;
  font-style: normal;
  src: url(res:///Data/fonts/arlrdbd.ttf);
}

@font-face {
  font-family: "W5JCK";
  font-weight: bold;
  font-style: normal;
  src: url(res:///Data/fonts/ariblk.ttf);
}

@font-face {
  font-family: "W5JCK";
  font-weight: normal;
  font-style: italic;
  src: url(res:///Data/fonts/ariali.ttf);
}

@font-face {
  font-family: "W5JCK";
  font-weight: bold;
  font-style: italic;
  src: url(res:///Data/fonts/segoeuiz.ttf);
}

body { font-family: "W5JCK", sans serif; }
p { font-family: "W5JCK", sans serif; }

Last edited by jswinden; 02-26-2011 at 02:50 PM.
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Old 02-26-2011, 05:54 PM   #11
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Whatever font I use, I make it Bold. I find it hugely increases clarity. I think the Amazon font, though not actually bold, is heavier than the standard font.
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Old 02-27-2011, 01:10 AM   #12
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Going to have to check this out. The Sony PRS-350 is my first e-reader which I bought in January, so new to e-readers in general. Hadn't thought about customizing the font, though I do enjoy selecting from the different fonts available on the reader. Really like the larger ones if my glasses aren't nearby.
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Old 02-27-2011, 04:08 AM   #13
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Thank you everyone for helping me figure out how to setup custom fonts! I love it! Currently I'm using the Lexia DaMa font and enjoying it. While maybe not being the most typical book font, it's very easy to read.
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Old 02-27-2011, 08:41 AM   #14
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No matter how much I test, I keep coming back to Lexia Dama as the most readable font of the above.
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Old 02-27-2011, 11:57 AM   #15
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I tried : bitstream vera, calibri, cambria, candara, consolas, constantia, droid, fontin, palatino, segoe, sylfaen, vrinda, and the one I prefer is calibri. It looks clean and sharp, it's easy to read and while it's not too bold, it still shows nice contrast like the Kindle 3 pictures display, a bit like a semi-bold font would do. I recommend at least trying it, with PRS+ it makes fonts pretty easy to try.
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