Turn Publisher Fonts On

[sparklemotion]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Speaking of Publishers fonts. I bought some Karen Robards books last night two in epub and one in KF8 and they are totally unreadable on the Kindle or Tablet.

After exploding them in Calibre there are 10 different fonts and none of them are legible fonts for a ebook. They show up so light you can barely see them and some script fonts need a translator to figure out the letters.

Some Publisher's like Pocket just don't get it.

So frustrating! Why on earth do they do that? I had a rather lengthy biography I read recently and the publisher's font was extremely thin and light, it looked terrible on my PW.

[Katsunami]

One word. *Designers*.

If you don't want to use Publisher Fonts, then deDRM the book and force Calibre to upload it as Mobi. It worked the two books I have that use Publisher Fonts.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by sparklemotion

So frustrating! Why on earth do they do that? I had a rather lengthy biography I read recently and the publisher's font was extremely thin and light, it looked terrible on my PW.

It makes me wonder what eReader they are testing the book on or tablet for that matter.

[HYPE]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

One word. *Designers*.

If you don't want to use Publisher Fonts, then deDRM the book and force Calibre to upload it as Mobi. It worked the two books I have that use Publisher Fonts.

Thanks, but I ended up going straight into the CSS and deleting every instance of font-family. Worked very well.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by HYPE

Thanks, but I ended up going straight into the CSS and deleting every instance of font-family. Worked very well.

That's what I use to do with epub before I found the Modify epub plugin which does it for me. I wish it worked on AZW3.

[JSWolf]

The publisher is trying to go for a look like the pBook version and not all fonts that look good on paper look good on eInk.

But what I do is either I find a heavier weight version or I make one myself. It's the main body font that's the issue. The others aren't used that much and I can deal no problem. Sometimes the fonts are there for a good reason.

For example, 11/22/63 used embedded fonts very well.

The problem is that the one's who make the eBooks with the embedded fonts to simulate the pBook don't look at it on an eInk reader and see that the font is too thin.

[Yolina]

Originally Posted by Blossom

It makes me wonder what eReader they are testing the book on or tablet for that matter.

Makes me wonder if they tests the books at all or if it's just a case of "it will do"

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by Blossom

It makes me wonder what eReader they are testing the book on or tablet for that matter.

You're assuming they were tested.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

You're assuming they were tested.

It'd be pretty sad if they weren't. Maybe I'll write the publisher and ask.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by Blossom

It'd be pretty sad if they weren't. Maybe I'll write the publisher and ask.

I've certainly had some books that don't look like they possibly could have been checked. It's like they checked over the Word file, or whatever and then just assumed that their conversion software(s) would do the rest.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

I've certainly had some books that don't look like they possibly could have been checked. It's like they checked over the Word file, or whatever and then just assumed that their conversion software(s) would do the rest.

I've seen PDF conversions where there was an error every time a word with italics was next to a word without italics. The space between the words was not there.

A lot of the errors and crap formatting would be found out if the publisher had someone to look over these eBooks instead of just assuming the company they've hired knows what they are doing (which they don't).

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Blossom

It'd be pretty sad if they weren't. Maybe I'll write the publisher and ask.

You should work in IT for some time, and you'd become sadder.

"We need to get this new version of our program out by date X."
- "Can't be done. It still needs to be designed....."
"Designed?! Just start with the old version and write the new functions on top!"
- "That doesn't work. That software was never designed to handle these requirements."
"We'll worry about those problems when we encounter them."

And that is why so much software sucks and feels clunky, and it's the way many companies operate when it comes down to computers and automation.

"We will worry about it when it's starting to go wrong."

I'm not surprised publishers don't check or proofread their stuff until many complaints have come in.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I'm not surprised publishers don't check or proofread their stuff until many complaints have come in.

And even then they don't change the way they make eBooks. But at least I know what I am doing to clean things up and it doesn't take too long.

On Kindles and Kindle apps you should be able to circumvent embedded fonts by turning publisher fonts OFF. Unfortunately that doesn't always work and it is inconsistent across various devices.

[RANT]As far as eBook formatting goes, I'm convinced that most people hired to do that don't know their backside from a hole in ground! Most eBooks are formatted as though they are print books. You can just look at all the stupid questions we get on this forum about formatting from people who claim they are trying to format eBooks for clients. Hell, if they don't know what the eff they are doing then why we're they even hired?!? IMO they need to stay away from embedded fonts, learn CSS and HTML, learn how to format images for eBooks, or get the hell out of the publications business. [/RANT]

[Katsunami]

If you can properly format a one column website with a header, body text and footer, and put some images in that column, then you should be able to perfectly format an eBook. An epub basically IS a one column website stuffed into a zip-file and renamed to epub. (With some extra stuff tagged onto it, but Sigil or EPUBMetaDataEditor will handle that automatically.)

I think many people who format eBooks use programs in "Visual Mode"; maybe they even use Word, export to HTML, have Sigil create an epub out of that, and they're "done".

Back in the day, many people used word to create website pages that way. Create the page in Word, export to HTML, upload, and put a link to that page onto the site.