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Bob Russell · 12-31-2004, 02:13 PM

Well, I gave up on eReader tech support. Probably got lost in the holiday break, so I decided to give the obvious solution a try, and it works great! I really love having this new font choice, and I think others may find this useful also.

The problem was that with True Type fonts there is something called the font family, within which there are various fonts like bold, italic, etc. When you see the drop down list in eReader, it seems to only allow you to choose that font family (or equivalently, just the plain font of that family). You can't pick out the bold and make that the font for the document unless it's the only font installed in that family.

The solution was to rename the font as a new font name in a new font family. You can't change the font properties unless you use a font editor that can edit true type fonts. I found one called Softy at http://users.breathe.com/l-emmett/ which is shareware. If you have just one font to change, I don't think the author would mind too much if you make use of the trial version, which is what I did. But for ongoing use past the 30day trial, you'll need to register for $25. I only used it for changing the properties (names), but it looks like it can do much more.

After unzipping the download of Softy, you run the .exe file and then pick "True Type" fonts as the font type. Then open A COPY OF the font you want to have as an eReader choice. In my case, I wanted to see Tahoma Bold, so I took that font file (from the windows fonts directory) and copied it to another location for editing, and to be later moved to my PPC.

Open that file with Softy, and do some renaming along the following lines...
Family = MyTahoma
Subfamily = Boldn (actually I think I used "Bold", but somehow it ended up like this.)
Identifier = My Tahoma Bold
Full Name = My Microsoft My Tahoma B (truncated but seems to be okay)
Postscript Name = MyTahoma-Bold

I doubt that all of those are necessary, but probably Family is most important to make it another font family. Identifiers might need to be unique also, but I'm not sure.

Anyway, I then saved the changes, and changed the filename to mytahomabd.ttf, and then moved it to the Windows\font\ directory on my PPC using activesync. Voila! It works great!!!!

A couple of notes based on observations and info from Alexander in another thread...
1) If you add fonts, check them out right away in eReader, because after a soft reset you can only delete the font by renaming the extension, reseting again, and then deleting the font file. This is due to the file being locked, maybe to protect the files from accidental deletion?
2) As noted before, if bold and regular fonts are both installed from the same font family, you will only see regular in font list for ereader.

Disclaimer: I really don't know what I am doing, and just "followed my nose", so I make no guarantees this will work for you. You really should do a backup before messing with any "system" files.

If anyone tries this, let us know how it goes. Good luck!

12-31-2004, 02:13 PM	#3
Bob Russell Recovering Gadget Addict Posts: 5,381 Karma: 676161 Join Date: May 2004 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Device: iPad	Tahoma Bold Solution for eReader Well, I gave up on eReader tech support. Probably got lost in the holiday break, so I decided to give the obvious solution a try, and it works great! I really love having this new font choice, and I think others may find this useful also. The problem was that with True Type fonts there is something called the font family, within which there are various fonts like bold, italic, etc. When you see the drop down list in eReader, it seems to only allow you to choose that font family (or equivalently, just the plain font of that family). You can't pick out the bold and make that the font for the document unless it's the only font installed in that family. The solution was to rename the font as a new font name in a new font family. You can't change the font properties unless you use a font editor that can edit true type fonts. I found one called Softy at http://users.breathe.com/l-emmett/ which is shareware. If you have just one font to change, I don't think the author would mind too much if you make use of the trial version, which is what I did. But for ongoing use past the 30day trial, you'll need to register for $25. I only used it for changing the properties (names), but it looks like it can do much more. After unzipping the download of Softy, you run the .exe file and then pick "True Type" fonts as the font type. Then open A COPY OF the font you want to have as an eReader choice. In my case, I wanted to see Tahoma Bold, so I took that font file (from the windows fonts directory) and copied it to another location for editing, and to be later moved to my PPC. Open that file with Softy, and do some renaming along the following lines... Family = MyTahoma Subfamily = Boldn (actually I think I used "Bold", but somehow it ended up like this.) Identifier = My Tahoma Bold Full Name = My Microsoft My Tahoma B (truncated but seems to be okay) Postscript Name = MyTahoma-Bold I doubt that all of those are necessary, but probably Family is most important to make it another font family. Identifiers might need to be unique also, but I'm not sure. Anyway, I then saved the changes, and changed the filename to mytahomabd.ttf, and then moved it to the Windows\font\ directory on my PPC using activesync. Voila! It works great!!!! A couple of notes based on observations and info from Alexander in another thread... 1) If you add fonts, check them out right away in eReader, because after a soft reset you can only delete the font by renaming the extension, reseting again, and then deleting the font file. This is due to the file being locked, maybe to protect the files from accidental deletion? 2) As noted before, if bold and regular fonts are both installed from the same font family, you will only see regular in font list for ereader. Disclaimer: I really don't know what I am doing, and just "followed my nose", so I make no guarantees this will work for you. You really should do a backup before messing with any "system" files. If anyone tries this, let us know how it goes. Good luck!