Bummer...Kindle3 Phonetic Symbol won't SHOW...

[xudeyuanghw]

I have installed the latest font hacks and changed some of the fonts accordingly. So far, everything about the English and CJK fonts looks fantastic on this little toy, but the annoying thing came after I looked a little closer at the dictionary. I installed several dictionaries including Oxford American Dictionary and Modern English Dictionary, etc. But among all of them, some their phonetic symbols are missing. There are no weird symbols, no junk information, just blank placeholders I assume.

I searched the internet for a while and fumbled through a lot of possible solutions. But nothing happend. I even used font creator to include the missing characters into several fonts files. But still, They just wont appear....

Somebody help me. here is my configuration for the font hack. Could anyone kindly point out which font is in control of all the dictionary phonetics? I tried Sans_Regular.ttf, no good...



# @(#)font.properties 1.5 97/11/25
#
# Copyright (c) 1994-1996 by Sun Microsystems Inc
#
# Please keep Browser up-to-date with these fonts.
# Sync the following file: .../trunk/device/apps/browser_booklet/prefs/netfront.ini

# Serif font definition
#
serif.0=Serif_Regular.ttf
serif.1=Serif_Bold.ttf
serif.2=Serif_Italic.ttf
serif.3=Serif_BoldItalic.ttf
serif.plain=Serif_Regular.ttf
serif.bold=Serif_Bold.ttf
serif.italic=Serif_Italic.ttf
serif.bolditalic=Serif_BoldItalic.ttf

# SansSerif font definition
#
sansserif.0=Sans_Regular.ttf
sansserif.1=Sans_Bold.ttf
sansserif.2=Sans_Italic.ttf
sansserif.3=Sans_BoldItalic.ttf
sansserif.plain=Sans_Regular.ttf
sansserif.bold=Sans_Bold.ttf
sansserif.italic=Sans_Italic.ttf
sansserif.bolditalic=Sans_BoldItalic.ttf

sanserif.0=Sans_Regular.ttf
sanserif.1=Sans_Bold.ttf
sanserif.2=Sans_Italic.ttf
sanserif.3=Sans_BoldItalic.ttf
sanserif.plain=Sans_Regular.ttf
sanserif.bold=Sans_Bold.ttf
sanserif.italic=Sans_Italic.ttf
sanserif.bolditalic=Sans_BoldItalic.ttf


# Monospaced font definition
#
monospaced.0=Mono_Regular.ttf
monospaced.1=Mono_Bold.ttf
monospaced.2=Mono_Italic.ttf
monospaced.3=Mono_BoldItalic.ttf
monospaced.plain=Mono_Regular.ttf
monospaced.bold=Mono_Bold.ttf
monospaced.italic=Mono_Italic.ttf
monospaced.bolditalic=Mono_BoldItalic.ttf

# Dialog font definition
#
dialog.0=Sans_Regular.ttf
dialog.1=Sans_Bold.ttf
dialog.2=Sans_Italic.ttf
dialog.3=Sans_BoldItalic.ttf
dialog.plain=Sans_Regular.ttf
dialog.bold=Sans_Bold.ttf
dialog.italic=Sans_Italic.ttf
dialog.bolditalic=Sans_BoldItalic.ttf

# Dialoginput font definition
#
dialoginput.0=Sans_Regular.ttf
dialoginput.1=Sans_Bold.ttf
dialoginput.2=Sans_Italic.ttf
dialoginput.3=Sans_BoldItalic.ttf
dialoginput.plain=Sans_Regular.ttf
dialoginput.bold=Sans_Bold.ttf
dialoginput.italic=Sans_Italic.ttf
dialoginput.bolditalic=Sans_BoldItalic.ttf

# Symbol font definition
#
symbol.0=Kindle_Symbol.ttf
symbol.plain=Kindle_Symbol.ttf

monospacedsymbol.0=Kindle_MonospacedSymbol.ttf
monospacedsymbol.plain=Kindle_MonospacedSymbol.ttf

# international font support
code2000.0=I18N.ttf
code2000.plain=I18N.ttf

jpan.0=CJK.ttf
jpan.plain=CJK.ttf
jpan.1=CJK.ttf
jpan.bold=CJK_Bold.ttf
jpan.italic=CJK_Italic.ttf
jpan.bolditalic=CJK_BoldItalic.ttf

kore.0=CJK.ttf
kore.plain=CJK.ttf
kore.1=CJK.ttf
kore.bold=CJK_Bold.ttf
kore.italic=CJK_Italic.ttf
kore.bolditalic=CJK_BoldItalic.ttf

hant.0=CJK.ttf
hant.plain=CJK.ttf
hant.1=CJK.ttf
hant.bold=CJK_Bold.ttf
hant.italic=CJK_Italic.ttf
hant.bolditalic=CJK_BoldItalic.ttf

hans.0=CJK.ttf
hans.plain=CJK.ttf
hans.1=CJK.ttf
hans.bold=CJK_Bold.ttf
hans.italic=CJK_Italic.ttf
hans.bolditalic=CJK_BoldItalic.ttf

alt.0=/mnt/us/fonts/alt-Regular.ttf
alt.1=/mnt/us/fonts/alt-Bold.ttf
alt.2=/mnt/us/fonts/alt-Italic.ttf
alt.3=/mnt/us/fonts/alt-BoldItalic.ttf
alt.plain=/mnt/us/fonts/alt-Regular.ttf
alt.bold=/mnt/us/fonts/alt-Bold.ttf
alt.italic=/mnt/us/fonts/alt-Italic.ttf
alt.bolditalic=/mnt/us/fonts/alt-BoldItalic.ttf

#
# condensed Caecilia
#
condensed.0=Caecilia_LT_67_Cond_Medium.ttf
condensed.1=Caecilia_LT_77_Cond_Bold.ttf
condensed.2=Caecilia_LT_68_Cond_Medium_Italic.ttf
condensed.3=Caecilia_LT_78_Cond_Bold_Italic.ttf
condensed.plain=Caecilia_LT_67_Cond_Medium.ttf
condensed.bold=Caecilia_LT_77_Cond_Bold.ttf
condensed.italic=Caecilia_LT_68_Cond_Medium_Italic .ttf
condensed.bolditalic=Caecilia_LT_78_Cond_Bold_Ital ic.ttf

# Default font definition
#
# default.char=274f
default.0=Sans_Regular.ttf

# name aliases
#
# alias.timesroman=serif
# alias.helvetica=sansserif
# alias.courier=monospaced

# Static FontCharset info.
#
# This information is used by the font which is not indexed by Unicode.
# Such fonts can use their own subclass of FontCharset.
#
# This information can be overriden by describing more specific style.
# For example
#
# fontcharset.serif.plain.3=SpecialSymbols
# means serif.plain.3 font's index can be retrieved with the convert() method
# of instance of SpecialSymbols and what kind of characters serif.plain.3 font
# has can be judged with the isCovered() method of instance of SpecialSymbols.
#

# fontcharset.dialoginput.0=sun.io.CharToByteISO8859 _1
# fontcharset.dialoginput.1=sun.awt.CharToByteSymbol

fontcharset.serif.0=sun.io.CharToByteISO8859_1
fontcharset.serif.1=sun.io.CharToByteISO8859_1
fontcharset.serif.2=sun.io.CharToByteISO8859_1

fontcharset.sansserif.0=sun.io.CharToByteISO8859_1
fontcharset.sansserif.1=sun.io.CharToByteISO8859_1
fontcharset.sansserif.2=sun.io.CharToByteISO8859_1

fontcharset.monospaced.0=sun.io.CharToByteISO8859_ 1
fontcharset.monospaced.1=sun.io.CharToByteISO8859_ 1
fontcharset.monospaced.2=sun.io.CharToByteISO8859_ 1

fontcharset.dialog.0=sun.io.CharToByteISO8859_1
fontcharset.dialog.1=sun.io.CharToByteISO8859_1
fontcharset.dialog.2=sun.io.CharToByteISO8859_1
# fontcharset.dialog.0=sun.io.CharToByteUnicodeBigUn marked
# fontcharset.dialog.1=sun.io.CharToByteUnicodeBigUn marked
# fontcharset.dialog.2=sun.io.CharToByteUnicodeBigUn marked

fontcharset.dialoginput.0=sun.io.CharToByteISO8859 _1
fontcharset.dialoginput.1=sun.io.CharToByteISO8859 _1
fontcharset.dialoginput.2=sun.io.CharToByteISO8859 _1

[zeroxia]

Sorry to bump this up.

Same problem here on Kindle 4, with Font hack installed, and kept at its original state (i.e., no tinkering with those .conf files).

Some of the phonetic symbols are output as a "rectangle" in the dictionary "pop up" window, but in the full definition page, the symbols are shown correctly.

The one I have found is the "ə" symbol. As demonstrated in the screenshots. Any idea to dismiss this annoyance would be appreciated.

[NiLuJe]

@zeroxia: the font you use for the "Sans" family doesn't have the proper glyphs. You can either use another one with full coverage, or frankenstein it with a font editor to add the missing glyphs.

(I don't *think* the framework looks into fallback fonts for the UI, so, changing the symbol/i18n font shouldn't have any effect on this, but, hey, I've never terribly looked into this myself ).

EDIT: That, or figure out how the default dictionaries manage not to put the phonetic pronunciation at all in the popup .

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by zeroxia

Some of the phonetic symbols are output as a "rectangle" in the dictionary "pop up" window, but in the full definition page, the symbols are shown correctly.

AFAIK, some dictionary publishers, for example the publisher of the Oxford English dictionary, use IPA images instead of actual IPA characters and the dictionary lookup window doesn't appear to support images.
(I haven't actually checked the CJK dictionaries, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did the same.)

tl;dr there's probably nothing you can do about it.

[zeroxia]

Thanks for the replies.

The phonetic font used in the popup window is different than that used in the full definition screen?

As the full definition window can display the phonetic glyph, I think the font probably has such glyph.

But I'll try some other sans font to double check. Thanks again.

[Doitsu]

Before you waste more time fiddling with font settings, you may want to unpack the dictionary with KindleUnpack. (You might have to DeDRM it first).
I'm pretty sure, that you'll get a folder with lots of IPA character images in it and that'll be the end of it.

[NiLuJe]

I defer to Doitsu on this, so do check how the dictionary is built before messing with fonts, but to answer a part of the question, yes, the dictionary pop-up uses the default font configured for the "sans" family, while the reader defaults to "serif", and probably tries much harder at actually properly showing exotic glyphs.