K5 [Kindle Touch] Font Hack

[[bo]]

I'm still on a lookout for a nice condensed font. Only DejaVu works, barely.

I've tried Myriad Pro Semicond and Cond, Din Text Condensed, Helen Condensed. The problem with all those, as I wrote previously, is they're a too small on 9pt and too large on 11 pt.

Garamond Premier, Warnock, Maiola and all those work ok, but I find the serif fonts harder to read on the low-res Kindle screen. Also, they're just too wide for my preference.

adamselene is right - there are just too many fonts out there. If anyone stumbles upon a nice and readable condensed, please post it here. Thanks.

[techiemonkey]

Ummm.@adamselene I have a problem.I created a file named USE_ALT_FONTS then put averia fonts directly in fonts folder and typed ;fc-cache in the search bar and pressed enter.then I went out for fifteen minutes,opened a book and pressed aa button for selecting a font but the kindle hangs and restarts.please help.firmware is 5.1.0 and Ithis is a k5.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by [bo]

Garamond Premier, Warnock, Maiola and all those work ok, but I find the serif fonts harder to read on the low-res Kindle screen.

What is "low-res" about a 168 ppi display?

I really think you are seeing effects of low contrast, a topic which has several threads here already and a lot of complaints.

[thayerwilliams]

Originally Posted by bartveld

I have fattened Times Roman a bit to increase legibility. I like it, maybe someone else shares my old-fashioned taste.

I know this is an old post, but just wanted to say thanks for this. It's the best modification of TNR I've found for the K3 and it looks great.

[notimp]

Installed fonthack-1.3.1 and libfreetype-6.8.1 on KT 5.1.2, first it worked fine, but the I the button to set the "condensed" font from within the UI vanished.
Restarted Framework and Kindle, still the same problem.

Im uninstalling the packages now... Will reinstall later. Any idea how this might have happened?

edit: Nevermind. Reset ALL default ([S]) Kindle fonts within the UI to their defaults and restarted Framework and the Button reapeared.

[ixtab]

This version fixes the issue with the "condensed" button disappearing, and includes another cosmetical fix. Download from the link given in the first post.

[adamselene]

Originally Posted by techiemonkey

Ummm.@adamselene I have a problem.I created a file named USE_ALT_FONTS then put averia fonts directly in fonts folder and typed ;fc-cache in the search bar and pressed enter.then I went out for fifteen minutes,opened a book and pressed aa button for selecting a font but the kindle hangs and restarts.please help.firmware is 5.1.0 and Ithis is a k5.

Really couldn't tell you. But this whole thing is pretty unpolished, so bugs would absolutely not surprise me.

[ugumba]

Originally Posted by ixtab

This version fixes the issue with the "condensed" button disappearing, and includes another cosmetical fix. Download from the link given in the first post.

Thanks, ixtab - the hack has already improved my reading enjoyment a great deal!

Is it safe to just replace the azw2 file, or do I need to uninstall and install? In the latter case, do I need to use my original uninstall version, or can I use the 1.3.2 uninstall?

[ixtab]

You can simply replace the .azw2 for this update
Or, you could just install it over the previous version without uninstalling first.

[bartveld]

Originally Posted by thayerwilliams

I know this is an old post, but just wanted to say thanks for this. It's the best modification of TNR I've found for the K3 and it looks great.

Thank you! Glad you like it...

[johnleo]

Hi, ixtab.

Quite new with this forum and with kindle touch too. I looked through this post and haven't been able to figure out if this font hack will give any help to replacing default Chinese font with another. I saw the UI and it is all about different English fonts. But I saw several posts talking about Chinese fonts. So could you explain it a bit? Thank you.

[ixtab]

@johnleo: sorry, but I can't. I don't know chinese, so it would be pointless for me to experiment with such settings.

You may want to a) ask in a chinese forum, b) directly contact some of the folks who experimented with chinese fonts, and/or c) hope for some of them to answer here.

[johnleo]

I see.
Because someone talked about it in this thread with you(you may not remember coz they were dozens of pages back), I thought you know something about it.
Never mind. I will wait for some Chinese guy to work this out. Thanks for your reply.

[ixtab]

Originally Posted by johnleo

I see.
Because someone talked about it in this thread with you(you may not remember coz they were dozens of pages back), I thought you know something about it.

I do remember those posts - but I can't give you more information than I already posted back then

Originally Posted by johnleo

Never mind. I will wait for some Chinese guy to work this out. Thanks for your reply.

Even better: try to work it out by yourself, then post the instructions here...

PS: You can also check the "original" version (in the spoiler) of the very first post - it contains various helpful links about fontconfig, and about how it can be customized and "debugged".

[yiming]

Originally Posted by johnleo

I see.
Because someone talked about it in this thread with you(you may not remember coz they were dozens of pages back), I thought you know something about it.
Never mind. I will wait for some Chinese guy to work this out. Thanks for your reply.

hi johnleo

yes, you can use fonthack to replace the default Chinese font.

the instructions can be found at this link http://irising.me/2012/03/14118/

if you have problems accessing the page, pls use the Google cache copy:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.co...=imvns&strip=1