[Kindle Touch] Font Hack

[ixtab]

Originally Posted by lukeroge

I'm still unable to remove the modified freetype (and yes, I did choose update), any ideas? :/

What error are you getting? The uninstaller has been thoroughly tested and it works here (which is why I was assuming user error).

[Antoinekamel]

I didn't notice the freetype change, just installed and forgot 'till now.

Reading the complaint, though, I tried to see the difference, and, really, with the altered freetype it is a little worse to read in Kindle. I'm posting a screenshot with and without the alteration for those interested to see.

(The screenshot is with Museo as sans-serif font.)

[yiming]

Originally Posted by ixtab

The freetype engine doesn't create new problems

Does this config play nicely with fonthack, or does it interfere somehow? If it plays nicely: does it also work when put into /mnt/us/fonthack/ (instead of /etc/fonts/conf.d/), for instance with the filename 99-AAA-chinese.conf, or 99-zzz-chinese.conf? (try the bold one, it should work)

The reason why I'm asking is that this might be interesting for other chinese folks as well, and not everybody knows how to access the root partition.

did some experiments, here are the results:

1. my original config works fine with fonthack.

2. I followed your suggestion and put the config in /mnt/us/fonthack/ and named it as 99-zzz-chinese.conf and everything's ok, EXCEPT when I use fonthack to select a new Condensed font, the Chinese fonts will be affected.

The Chinese Condensed font will now become the same as the Chinese Regular font. so it's the Condensed font that causes problem again.

3. my original Chinese fonts were located at a sub-folder under /mnt/us/ and ln to /usr/share/fonts. I moved them to /mnt/us/fonthack and executed mkfontscale and mkfontdir to create fonts.scale and fonts.dir. everything again is ok.

since the idea of putting the config file under /mnt/us/fonthack is to help users who may not know how to access the root partition, is there a way to put the Chinese fonts under the /mnt/us/ and for fonthack to create the fonts.scale and fonts.dir automatically?

many thanks in advance.

[ixtab]

You could either put them under the fonthack directory itself and initialize them like any other font, or put them whereever you want and include the fonts.scale and fonts.dir with the download.

I am not 100% sure, but fonts.scale and fonts.dir should be ok to simply be copied from one device to another.

[sHiN3]

@ixtab

Hi there, I have a problem after install fonthack-1.2, i can't restart my Kindle Touch or it will stuck at boot screen.

I followed the instruction, and override default sans-serif with Chinese fonts, everything is fine. But When I try to use "settings > Menu > Restart Your Kindle", the shutdown process is success, then it stuck at boot screen. The only way to get me out of this is booting up with USB plugs into the computer to get Kindle in USB mode.

I also notice that even if I launch Font Hack, initialize a font > Re-cache > Restart framework, but haven't applied this font to any system font family(no 99-xxxx.conf generated), a "Restart" also stuck at boot screen.

My guess: Kindle stucks at the first 00-xxxx.conf loading 4 fonts from /mnt/us/fonthack. I use four Chinese fonts which are about 42MB in total, I don't know if that's the problem.

[ixtab]

Hmmm... that may very well be the case. The Kindle has severely limited memory, and 42 MB is a *lot* in that context. Does removing the offending .conf (and the directory with the font as well, just to be sure) solve the problem?

[sHiN3]

Yes! This time I delete Italic & Bold Italic font, only keep Regular & Bold (22MB), then delete Italic & Bold Italic entry in 00-xxxx.conf, and then ssh to Kindle, mkfontscale > mkfontdir > fc-cache -v -f > killall cvm, after that i cross my fingers, try "Restart". yes, it works.

Since the "bold bleeding" is the only problem, I think 2 fonts is enough.

[yiming]

Originally Posted by sHiN3

Yes! This time I delete Italic & Bold Italic font, only keep Regular & Bold (22MB), then delete Italic & Bold Italic entry in 00-xxxx.conf, and then ssh to Kindle, mkfontscale > mkfontdir > fc-cache -v -f > killall cvm, after that i cross my fingers, try "Restart". yes, it works.

Since the "bold bleeding" is the only problem, I think 2 fonts is enough.

@sHiN3

if you can ssh to your Kindle, you don't really need to use fonthack to change the Chinese fonts. What you can do is to create a Chinese fontconfig under /etc/fonts/conf.d/ and place your Chinese fonts under /mnt/us/ and ln them to /usr/share/fonts/.

as for "bold bleeding", the problem can be resolved by installing the freetype font engine available on post #117
. but please note the side effect on English condensed font setting. please see post #131.

[mars77]

hi, first of all thanks for your hack ixtab!

i ran into a problem and i cant solve it on my own:

i want to get my fonts back (the original ones that came with the kindle) but i cant.
uninstalling didnt help, guess the fonts are changed permanently.

when i reset all 4 fonts to default in fonthack i guess it should be the same as factory default fonts? well, it is not for me. both "regular" and "condensed" fonts are exactly the same which means one of them is missing (the one i want to get back ). maybe its a bug and fonthack sets both fonts to the same font?

in fonthack itself the fonts are different, but when reading a book both "regular" and "condensed" setting are the exactly same font.

sorry for my bad english, looking forward for help as im desperate.
have a nice weekend

[ixtab]

It's not a bug in fonthack. It's an issue with the freetype library. See the updated post here.

Solution: uninstall the "newer" freetype library as well. Or reinstall fonthack, and explicitly override the condensed font (for instance with DejaVu condensed).

[mars77]

thank you for your answer

i uninstalled the freetype library but that did not fix the problem.
so i will install fonthack, set/leave all fonts on default but the condensed which i will use dejavu condensed instead and then i got all my original fonts back (dejavu condensed is the original kindle font?) ?

i dont want to uninstall fonthack at all, but i want my old font back besides 1 or 2 new.

thx again for your help


edit: i installed and then uninstalled freetype and everything is fine now

[ixtab]

The only font affected by all this weirdness is the default "condensed" one.

So if you're really, really, desperately in love with that font (Caecilia condensed), you'll have to do without the "newer" libfreetype. FontHack as such will then work for all fonts, but you may see the well-known issues for which the new freetype library was introduced in the first place.

If you do use the new library, the default condensed font will revert to the default serif font (Caecilia regular). I don't know why this is happening, or how it can be fixed. This is *not* a problem with fonthack, and in fact not even with the freetype library itself either(*), but with the Kindle framework. Fonthack as such will again work correctly, and a simple workaround is to explicitly set another condensed font.

I am recommending DejaVu Serif condensed, for the simple reason that it looks much better than Caecilia condensed. In fact, I'm personally using DejaVu Serif condensed directly as the Serif font, so I don't even need the condensed font at all.

But this is all personal taste, of course.

(*) I am assuming that the freetype library originally shipped with the KT is one that was heavily modified by Amazon. This would explain these differences in behavior.

[mars77]

thanks again!

now i have a much bigger problem, after fooling around with my kindle all day i guess i messed sth. seriously up. it wont reboot on its own, its always stuck at the screen with the tree. only way to reboot it is using mfg tools (main profile). but once i reboot it manually (or it reboots itself after installing something) its stuck again :/

[ixtab]

Uh-oh. That's certainly not nice. But please discuss it in one of the debricking threads.

[OpenGG]

Hi, I have used this hack for a day or two, it really helps
But I also met some issues:
1. Can't use ttc fonts and renaming *.ttc to *.ttf doesn't work, converting to .ttf is a must.
2. Can't boot when restarting (menu->setting->menu->restart), the power led just goes off after taping power btn. And I have to connect to pc through usb to help booting.
3. After restarting, it returns to default font, and I have to reconfig, refresh font caching and restart the framework.

Is it just me or everybody running into these issues?