Nice (free) Fonts Collection

[voom]

I thought it could be handy to have a fonts-thread to point out (free) fonts that work well on the Kobo.

To receive a good result in most cases one should put at least the 4 most used styles of a font-family into kobo's fonts-folder, they will be detected and listed as 1 font in the selection-menu and handled accordingly. The 4 basic styles are Regular (or Roman), Italic, Bold and BoldItalic.

As I find Caecilia (the standard Kindle-Font) quite convincing, I had a look for similar Slab Serif Fonts and found Charis SIL: http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Charis-SIL

Android 4 ICS introduced a newly created sans-serif-font, Roboto, that is especially fit to deliver good readibility in very small letters and look still nice as a heading etc. If I want more / smaller text on each page I prefer Roboto over the others, it really does, as it is supposed to, look still easy and "spacey" (as opposed to "overcrowded") in smaller font-settings. http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/roboto

While comparing the Android-Fonts Droid Sans (Android 3) and Roboto I found Droid Serif, that is nice in small sizes, too, and adds a screen-optimized serif-font to this collection. http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Droid-Serif

Which fonts do you use and like (and why?)

[Barsoom]

I was wondering if there was a thread somewhere concerning this.

I've been using Black Chancery (mainly while reading fantasy novels) tho it doesn't do Italic (no biggie) and today I tried Omicron Zeta and like it with the Sci-Fi stuffs.

Also have tried these and like them.
Finchley
Duralith
Protoculture

[JSWolf]

voom, you might like Amasis. You can get it from the B&N nook STR latest update.

[Canorka]

My two mainstays are good old Charis SIL and Chaparral Pro. Amasis gets an honourable mention.

Nice classy, professional looking fonts.

Originally Posted by Barsoom

I've been using Black Chancery (mainly while reading fantasy novels) tho it doesn't do Italic (no biggie) and today I tried Omicron Zeta and like it with the Sci-Fi stuffs.

Interesting point (on using a particular font for a particular genre). Is there any way to just change the heading fonts though, since reading the body in a graphic font would be difficult?

[voom]

Interesting point (on using a particular font for a particular genre). Is there any way to just change the heading fonts though, since reading the body in a graphic font would be difficult?

Only if you tap into the ePUB-Code e.g. with Sigil, if the headings are declared as such (h1, h2, h3) you could edit the css-stylesheet and change the font for the hx-tags... I would yet have to try if a font installed on the Kobo that is referenced in the css shows in the file, but you can even include the font in the ePUB, that should work fine. Though Sigil is Freeware, you don't even need a special editor, as an ePUB is really a Zip-File and e.g. 7-Zip opens it as such even with the .epub - extension.

[voom]

The Black Chancery I like, though in my eyes for other uses than e-reading; the omicron looks to me a lot like Neuropol got married to Chinyen Good stuff if one wants to author a genre-book oneself, but as BWinmill said, rather to include it just as a heading-font. I'd say it is probably best in any eBook to leave the font family and size of body-text to the reader's choice. To see more fancy headings in eBooks I would no mind though, I also like stuff like little grafical ornaments as dividers and such...

[therealjoeblow]

I find Gentium Book Basic to be perfect, just the right amount of serif (not overdone), and perfect line weights, no single strokes, but yet not bold either.

http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/p...=Gentium_basic

Cheers
The REAL Joe

[Darth_Bane]

Originally Posted by therealjoeblow

I find Gentium Book Basic to be perfect, just the right amount of serif (not overdone), and perfect line weights, no single strokes, but yet not bold either.

Let me add a second vote for Gentium Book Basic. I've been using it exclusively for over a year and to my eyes, it's the closest thing to a printed book font.

One thing that puzzles me is that whenever these fave font threads pop up, more often than not people recommend sans-serif fonts. I fully realize that font preferences are very subjective, but in my case, I just can't read a sans-serif font novel. Strangely though, I much prefer sans-serif when reading technical documentation or web pages.

[voom]

I tried Gentium but to my eyes it "puts too much weight into too small a space" - can't describe it better... Also in the book I read just now there is heavy use of bold and italic type for emphasis and it misses a visible bold face.

I pretty much stick to fonts right now, that have been optimized for Screenreading, they usually are more "spacey" in small sizes. That may be because for many years I have mostly read text on screen and only few books (as opposed to earlier years when I read huge amounts of books...).

Right now I'm with Roboto, but Caecilia or Charis are still closely second up...

[Thra11]

I like Gentium too, but my favourite/the font I usually use to read stuff, is Linux Libertine.