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Old 02-15-2011, 08:18 AM   #1
yelloguy
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Making it more like Kindle/Nook

I saw a Nook (classic) at Walmart on Sunday and was blown away by how white the background looked and how beautiful the font (Amassis) looked. This after 3 weeks of reading on the PRS 350. So, yesterday I spent the whole day reading about fonts and spent the evening experimenting with the 350. I also looked at my friend's Kindle for the Caecilia font.

One of the things that Kindle does well is that it uses the same font consistently. My 350 uses so many different fonts that it seems annoying.

With that in mind, I decided to modify the userStyle.css (I have Baroda firmware) to point all the other known fonts to CharisSIL. I chose Charis because a lot of ePubs use this font embedded and it looked most Kindle like on my 350. So if many ePubs embed it and my 350 uses it for those that don't, I would see it everywhere, right? Well, Calibre created news sources use a variety of fonts. Then of course, my PDF's use different fonts too. There is nothing I can do about the PDF's but for news, I decided to use the "font misdirection" method. I substituted Georgia, Verdana, Times, TNR, and serif with Charis.ttf resource. I also substituted Arial, Helvetica and sans-serif with the same. It is giving me some formatting issues and I need to experiment some more today. But the idea seems to be working.

I would then create another userStyle.css file that points to a sans-serif font for everything the same way. This will allow us to switch fonts like on Kindle or Nook. And it will apply them consistently.

So far I have compared Charis with Droid, Lexia DaMa and Constantia. I like Charis and Constantia a lot. Charis is a bit chunky and looks good but Constantia is easier on the eye while reading and looks generally more pleasing.

Edit 2/16/2011:

It worked even better than I expected. I tried it with Fontin font and it replaced the font in ePubs embedded with Charis too.

Here is a link to my epub folder's zip http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8856395/epub.zip

Unzip it and replace your epub folder to use Charis font everywhere. Pick another file and rename it to userStyle.css to use that font. Of course, first you will have to rename the current userStyle.css to userStyle.Charis.all.css.

Last edited by yelloguy; 02-16-2011 at 07:41 AM. Reason: more up to date info + link
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Old 02-15-2011, 08:26 AM   #2
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Quote:
My 350 uses so many different fonts that it seems annoying.
It actually has only 3 built in fonts. one serif, one sans serif, one monospace.

Quote:
There is nothing I can do about the PDF's but for news
Eou can replace system fonts mentioned above, if you have custom firmware. It should also affect PDFs (provided, they don't have built in font)
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Old 02-15-2011, 08:41 AM   #3
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Give Fontin a try - it's a free serif font.

http://www.josbuivenga.demon.nl/fontin.html
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Old 02-15-2011, 09:50 AM   #4
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@Coops, I have downloaded Fontin and Fontin-Sans. I will try them when I get a chance.

@kartu, the Reader uses the built-in serif and sans-serif fonts for books (and periodicals) with no built-in fonts. Then some books contains Charis and other fonts embedded. In all that is too many fonts and the experience is jarring. On the Kindle, everything is done using the same Font including the UI. It allows you to pick serif or sans-serif but then applies it to everything consistently. Of course since Amazon controls the azw format, they don't have the embedded fonts problem. But my friend says occasionally some other fonts do show up on the Kindle too. So this problem cannot be completely eliminated but can be controlled a little bit.
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Old 02-15-2011, 11:18 AM   #5
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If you want Caecilia you can buy it from Linotype. It costs $26.00 "per weight" or $195 for the whole family.

http://www.linotype.com/1313/pmncaecilia-family.html

Part of the reason Charis is so popular is that, in addition to being a nice reading font, it is free and has a very liberal license (free to redistribute too).

eP
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Old 02-15-2011, 11:46 AM   #6
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But that is not the same Caecilia as the Kindle and I am NOT going to spend more on a font than I spent on the device ;-)
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Old 02-15-2011, 12:09 PM   #7
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How is it different? I'm just curious about that.
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Old 02-15-2011, 12:31 PM   #8
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Originally Posted by elemenoP View Post
How is it different? I'm just curious about that.
eP - You might find this thread interesting. It has been trying to address that question.
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=115774
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Old 02-15-2011, 12:56 PM   #9
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Very interesting indeed! Thanks for the link. So are there font files on the Kindle, like TTF or OTF? You could theoretically move them from the Kindle and onto your computer and use them? (and from there, onto your Sony?)

The bottom line here is that Amazon put a lot of thought and work into their font and Sony did not.

eP
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Old 02-15-2011, 03:04 PM   #10
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My understanding is that if you jailbreak your Kindle then you have access to files that you otherwise would not, e.g. the font files.
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Old 02-16-2011, 07:44 AM   #11
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I just updated the original post and added a link. I tried the fontin font for all my reading last night. Did not like font but I liked the idea. So tonight I will try another font. But switching is easy now. See original post.
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Old 02-16-2011, 10:29 AM   #12
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Regarding fonts, I really wish eBooks would default to the exact same font/layout as the real book, and then the reader would give you the option to use a different, selectable font. I don't liek how on the Kindle 2 you're stuck with just one generic font...seems weird considering how easy it SHOULD be to do this on little computer like these things are.
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Old 02-16-2011, 11:04 AM   #13
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If you want to make it more like a kindle or nook, other than fonts, take a .45 ACP and blast away....
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Old 02-16-2011, 11:11 AM   #14
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Very interesting indeed! Thanks for the link.
eP, you might want to check the link again. It was updated last night with some very detailed info on the fonts.
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Old 02-16-2011, 11:37 AM   #15
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@wolf: some fonts look readable on paper but on these devices they are not as readable. these screens do not match the resolution of paper+print and a majority of fonts, especially one with thin parts or strokes look very unreadable. I think it would be a bad idea for publishers to emulate print fonts for these devices. In fact they shouldn't have *any* font information. It should be left to the rendering device if possible. Device manufacturers should study what fonts look good on their screens and make those available for their devices.

@drdann: what?
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