603 PB 603 dislikes

[mclien]

Originally Posted by paola

that may be an issue with the book - if the fonts are embedded, you cannot change them from the reading software.

Seem so. One book doesn't change the fonts the other does.
Besides changing the fonts in Calibre/Sigil, is there a way to convert it, so it hasn't embedded fonts at all?

@Kacir:
about fonts: can't llok on my windows machine, because I haven't one. But I'll find fonts on my GNU/Linux machine. Does anybody know of the freetype fonts work also?

[qariwa55]

What really annoys me about Pocketbook -- I have a PB Pro 602 -- is that there is no bug-tracking system. Arabic support is really unstable -- I have given details in these forums -- but short of writing up bug reports in Russian or Ukranian (Google translate does not cut it), I have no way of reporting to the developers. And it borders on the illegal for them not to have their open-source software (I am thinking specifically of FBReader) easily available. I suspect it would be trivial to fix the bugs I have found were the software available to me.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by mclien

@Kacir:
about fonts: can't llok on my windows machine, because I haven't one. But I'll find fonts on my GNU/Linux machine. Does anybody know of the freetype fonts work also?

You are my man!

Here is what I do. I install lots of fonts on my Mint Linux machine using Package Manager, then I fire up fontmatrix program and inspect fonts. You can find out where the files are located in "info" tab for font in FontMatrix program.
You can also use other types of fonts on PocketBook, just add ttf suffix. So SomeFontName_Regular.otf would become SomeFontName_Regular.otf.ttf. I know it sounds stupid, but it works. PocketBook has Linux operating system with many Free software components and can use other font types. It just has stupid filter, so it can only "see" .ttf fonts in its fonts directory.
There are many, many sites on the web, legal and otherwise where you can download fonts

I have also installed program Fonty Python for inspecting fonts I download from the net.

I have even modified a few fonts using FontForge program. It is highly non-trivial operation. One of many reasons is that fonts are really complicated and when you load font to FontMatrix for edit, the hinting info is discarded and you have to re-generate it. But your auto-genereated hinting info will not be as good as some high-quality commercial fonts (such as Caecilia from Kindle or Ubuntu Font) have.

You can download PowerPoint viewer from Microsoft and install it under Wine on Linux. It will install Microsoft Core fonts to your Wine directory. So you can get fonts from Microsoft even if you do not use windows.
If you install safari browser in wine you can get original Apple Garamond font. I personally dislike Garamond so I haven't done that.

There are many free and legal fonts at http://www.google.com/webfonts

If you want to convert a book so it doesn't contain embedded fonts, the best format is fb2. It is native format for FBReader. You can even zip fb2 book, and PocketBook will recognise *.fb2.zip file


And DO try that ubuntu font. Recently it is my absolute favourite for reading. Before that I was using mostly Gentium.

Oh ...
One more thing.
Install third-party FBReader to your reader, it is much more configurable than the built-in version. Also install Coolreader program.

[mclien]

Originally Posted by qariwa55

... And it borders on the illegal for them not to have their open-source software (I am thinking specifically of FBReader)

According to GPL it's not just border to...
Another reason, why my next reader surely isn't a PB.

To my font problem: Just noticed that I get diffrent fonts in Adobe and fbreader. Is that to happen with embedded fonts? (i don't think so. To me more likely a bug in FB, what leads back to qariwa55.

So again I stand with the question what actually will be my next reader...

[kacir]

Originally Posted by mclien

According to GPL it's not just border to...
Another reason, why my next reader surely isn't a PB.

To my font problem: Just noticed that I get diffrent fonts in Adobe and fbreader. Is that to happen with embedded fonts? (i don't think so. To me more likely a bug in FB, what leads back to qariwa55.

So again I stand with the question what actually will be my next reader...

They DID list the source of components that use GPL-ed code. How do you think the third-party FBReader180 came to life? Some clever hacker took that source of the default FBReader and improved it.
There is even Linux terminal for PocketBook devices that you can use to look around inside live system. It was developed during competition that was sponsored by PocketBook company.

Just have a look here:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...46#post1834646
You download the offcial SDK and you can compile your own version of programs included on PocketBook.

They (the PocketBook company) are NOT perfect, and it took them awfully long time to publish sources, and they haven't published sources of proprietary stuff that was developed without GPL components, but it is still WAAAAAAY more then the vast majority of e-ink reader manufacturers.

Have a look around. I challenge you. Find another manufacturer that provides an SDK in meaningful form.

I challenge you. Download GPLed code that Sony has provided on their site to satisfy legal requirements and try to do something with it. Download code from Amazon, Kobo, or other manufacturers.

[mclien]

I'm with you for the majority of the arguments.

I think, I'm just annoyed, that I haven't the same status (jet?) as with the PC (intel) arch:
Buying hardware, put in a netinstall CD and the rest ist just "apg-get install <my desired programm>" and a bit shell scripting..

The main disadvantage the pocketbooks have to me is still all the hardware features I have to buy wihtout needing them. I'm kind of spartian that way.

Just a e-Ink display, adictionary and a way to take notes (perhaps the style the old palm os devices had. Just a icon like a sheet of paper, which you can tab and edit like you like). And if a touchscreen, pleas a resistive one (not that glossy smartphone stuff, which makes people caress their phones like pets or tamagotchis).

So, since there is no apt-get on the PB, where to find the start topics about third party software for the PB?

[mclien]

Originally Posted by kacir

If you want to convert a book so it doesn't contain embedded fonts, the best format is fb2. It is native format for FBReader. You can even zip fb2 book, and PocketBook will recognise *.fb2.zip file

Just convert it via Calibre and the embedded fonts are gone?

And DO try that ubuntu font. Recently it is my absolute favourite for reading. Before that I was using mostly Gentium.

Do you think that are Ubuntu specific fonts or are they perhaps available on all debian systems (running squeeze/aptosid on my network. server still on Lenny))

[kacir]

Originally Posted by mclien

So, since there is no apt-get on the PB, where to find the start topics about third party software for the PB?

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=119973
Read this thread, especially the first post and follow links.
Ask further questions if you do not understand something.

Originally Posted by mclien

Just convert it via Calibre and the embedded fonts are gone?

Yes
I think that opening that epub in built-in FBReader should get rid of those embedded fonts, but I only have older generation PocketBook, so I can't try at the moment.

Originally Posted by mclien

Do you think that are Ubuntu specific fonts or are they perhaps available on all debian systems (running squeeze/aptosid on my network. server still on Lenny))

There is font called "Ubuntu Font".
http://font.ubuntu.com/
Looks familiar, doesn't it? ;-)
*Very* well made by a professional foundry. Lots of manual work done on hinting for small sizes, and it shows when you use it on an e-ink reader. The development was paid for by Canonical.

There is also Droid font, optimised for small screens, the development was paid for by Google, for use on Android operating system. But Droid font looks to cramped to me.
One of many, many places where you can download it.
http://damieng.com/blog/2007/11/14/d...oogle-ascender
Mind you, they are not very keen on you downloading those fonts (Google put them under Apache license, so it is OK) because foundry that did those fonts sells one cut of very similar font for fifty bucks. So if you wanted to purchase Regular, Bold, Italics and BoldItalics, you would pay $200. That is the usual price for good fonts. We are spoiled, because on Windows system there are some good quality fonts and some foundries (like SIL) release good fonts (such as Gentium) for free. Also on Linux there are some pretty decent fonts available, many of them courtesy of Red Hat.
I think that very few people realise how much work - very tedious work and very highly qualified work - a good font requires.

[qariwa55]

Originally Posted by kacir

They DID list the source of components that use GPL-ed code. How do you think the third-party FBReader180 came to life? Some clever hacker took that source of the default FBReader and improved it.
There is even Linux terminal for PocketBook devices that you can use to look around inside live system. It was developed during competition that was sponsored by PocketBook company.

Just have a look here:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...46#post1834646
You download the offcial SDK and you can compile your own version of programs included on PocketBook.

They (the PocketBook company) are NOT perfect, and it took them awfully long time to publish sources, and they haven't published sources of proprietary stuff that was developed without GPL components, but it is still WAAAAAAY more then the vast majority of e-ink reader manufacturers.

Have a look around. I challenge you. Find another manufacturer that provides an SDK in meaningful form.

I challenge you. Download GPLed code that Sony has provided on their site to satisfy legal requirements and try to do something with it. Download code from Amazon, Kobo, or other manufacturers.

My complaint was not so much about the misuse of GPLed code. I am not an expert on that, but I do get the feeling that none of the ebook manufacturers are following the spirit of that law. ...

What I am concerned about is how Pocketbook made a pretty feeble attempt to have fbreader support Arabic by customizing a couple of fonts, and (probably) doing a few other little things. But their version of fbreader is really buggy in handling Arabic and fonts in general (I have to reset fonts, sometimes several times, every time I turn my PB 602 on). I did manage to open up the sdk files from pbsdk-1.1.0 on my Mac OS (using the ar -x command), but I do not see any fbreader files among the sources. Pocketbook altered fbreader files for their firmware, but I cannot find those modifed files anywhere.

As for fbreader180, that may have improved on Pocketbook's fbreader version, but it is prohibitively buggy on myPB 602/fw 2.0.6 machine, and it has no Arabic support at all.

Perhaps I am sending this message to the wrong thread, but does anybody know where I can get those modifed fbreader files? Can I get them directly from Pocketbook? If so, how do I do that?

I am not a professional developer, but I do have experience altering simple bits of code. For example, with coolreader3, I went into the source code and changed text alignment from "justified" to "left", which (to my taste) looks much better.

[pkbo]

Originally Posted by qariwa55

Perhaps I am sending this message to the wrong thread, but does anybody know where I can get those modifed fbreader files? Can I get them directly from Pocketbook? If so, how do I do that?

Please check here But I'm not sure if one can build an executable from the sources provided or some files still missing since I did not try it for myself.

[Billi]

Originally Posted by qariwa55

As for fbreader180, that may have improved on Pocketbook's fbreader version, but it is prohibitively buggy on myPB 602/fw 2.0.6 machine, and it has no Arabic support at all.

qariwa, there is a special firmware 2.05 that supports Arabic:

http://www.pocketbook.de/support/pocketbook-602/

I'm not sure if the newer firmwares include this support, too, because I never had any interest in it, but maybe it is worth downgrading and afterwards upgrading to 2.06.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by qariwa55

What I am concerned about is how Pocketbook made a pretty feeble attempt to have fbreader support Arabic

Ahaaaa ...
NOW I understand your grumbling.
Arabic, Hebrew, Farsi and other Right-To-Left languages are very problematic for pretty much all e-ink readers. Perhaps an Android-based one (such as Sony T1) might work better if you manage to install special application.

PocketBook company does claim they support Arabic, they even sell their readers in Israel (and claim support for both Arabic and Hebrew).

There is thread about Hebrew support here on this forum. I guess most of what you learn there applies to the Arabic as well.

For now, your best bet is to convert to pdf. When converting set page size to physical page size of PocketBook (minus status line) for best results.
Again, there are two programs on PocketBook that can open pdf.
Sorry, I do not have better advice at the moment.
My own mother language, does have a few funny looking letters, but it is still close enough to English to have no problems with displaying text on PB.

[kacir]

Here is the "e-reader for Hebrew" thread.
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=105910

It looks like FBReader is hopeless.
Adobe Reader that displays e-pub is the best choice, it seems.

epub file is basically just zip file with html inside. So you can rename it to .epub.zip and unzip it to look inside. Zipping it back, well, that is more complicated, because the file manifest has to be non-compressed inside the archive and has to be at the beginning. Calibre can take the epub apart for you ant then pack it back together. Just right-click on a book in Calibre and select Tweak epub from menu. Calibre will create temporary directory with contents of epub inside. After you play with files Calibre will offer to pack files back into epub.

By the way, OpenOffice/LibreOffice odt files can be renamed to epub and opened on PocketBook, but that is ugly, UGLY hack, because file format is not identical, just similar enough to work (most of the time, in one of PocketBook aplications).

[qariwa55]

Originally Posted by pkbo

Please check here But I'm not sure if one can build an executable from the sources provided or some files still missing since I did not try it for myself.

Thanks, pkbo. It looks like I will have to learn the basics of Git to deal with that -- which I don't really have time to do now.

[qariwa55]

Originally Posted by Billi

qariwa, there is a special firmware 2.05 that supports Arabic:

http://www.pocketbook.de/support/pocketbook-602/

I'm not sure if the newer firmwares include this support, too, because I never had any interest in it, but maybe it is worth downgrading and afterwards upgrading to 2.06.

Been there, done that. The support is buggy, though I can read epub Arabic files, but is a bit of a pain:

First, I have to remove all font declarations from CSS files. This is getting easier as I develop my own CSS file for Arabic books and documents.

Second, the so-called Arabic fw does have two, probably doctored fonts, Droid Sans MTI Arabic and Droid Sans Fallback MTI Arabic. They kinda work, but whenever I open a file in fbreader, whether I have it set to one of these fonts or not, there is one particular Arabic letter, the "ya" that does not render properly, and seeing that it is probably the most common letter, this is really annoying. I always have to go into the fbreader settings and change the font to another one, and then back to one of those Arabic ones. Sometimes I have to back and forth like 10 times before the change sticks. The result looks fairly decent -- a sans font. It does not matter which of those two Arabic fonts you use because the result is the same. If you switch to anything else, including Arabic fonts I have added myself, you get the same garbage with the "ya".

Third, if there is any vowel marker in the original, this will not appear and it will ruin the way Arabic letters combine. The "stand alone" Arabic letter will appear instead. In Arabic documents, vowel markings are usually not very common (though there are many exceptions), but are included when otherwise there would be an ambiguity. So it is important to be able to render them.

fbreader180 simply does not support Arabic. It does not combine the letters, and has no right-to-left option.

So as I have said, there is Arabic support, but it is buggy. I tried upgrading from fw 2.0.6 to 2.1.2RC, but I could not do it because I got an error -- something about the partition. Maybe I will try that again and try to fix that problem.