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mashru · 08-13-2013, 06:29 AM

Some of us have been testing Indic ebooks on different devices. Most of the experiences reported here are in line with our experiences.

Here are a few suggestions:
1. Ipad: Do not use embedded fonts but let it use its native font. iOS uses ATT for font definition and rendering. Most .TTF fonts dont have correct ATT tables for complex characters.
2. Android. Aldilko and Bluefire need embedded fonts and they do a good job of displaying Indic characters. They work correctly under android OS versions > 4.
3. Kindle devices: Although indic script is not supported, basic unicode characters are supported. However, numerous complex characters as well as left vowel sign i render incorrectly. At the moment, Kindle devices are not usable. Kindle app on various OS have different set of issues. We have decided to not focus on Amazon app and devices except to test for basic compatibility.
4. Sigil display is mostly correct but you can not rely on it. You must test each book on different device. Calibre reader is good.
5. TOC: HTML TOC can be made to use either native (iOS) or embedded fonts (android). Other TOC for iOS renders complex characters incorrectly. Android doe snot render any characters.
6. Metadata: Both Ibookstore and indie stores such as smashwords use its own meta data specified when you uploaded the book. They do not use metadata embedded in the book for search. Hence you may use Indic script within epub and latin when uploading the book. Do not use indic script when uploading the book because no one will be able to search for the book!
7. Since Android needs embedded font and iOS does not want it, there are techniques for creating one epub file that can be used on both and can be used to create MOBI file.
8. If you are embedding fonts, you could embed non-unicode fonts (I hate it but many have done that because their original content was in non-unicode font).
9. We have most experience with Gujarati ebooks and have tried some devnagari scripts. I believe Bangla will have similar issues. You can see fully working epub books at ekatrafoundation.org site or at smashwords. They are free -- we are following Project Gutenberg's model as in running a non-profit organization.

I will be happy to discuss this further and share workarounds and templates that we have developed. We are too experimenting and learning as we create more books. You could write to me mashru2 [at] gmail [dot] com.

08-13-2013, 06:29 AM	#32
mashru Junior Member Posts: 7 Karma: 12 Join Date: Aug 2013 Device: ipad, android and kindle	Indic ebooks Some of us have been testing Indic ebooks on different devices. Most of the experiences reported here are in line with our experiences. Here are a few suggestions: 1. Ipad: Do not use embedded fonts but let it use its native font. iOS uses ATT for font definition and rendering. Most .TTF fonts dont have correct ATT tables for complex characters. 2. Android. Aldilko and Bluefire need embedded fonts and they do a good job of displaying Indic characters. They work correctly under android OS versions > 4. 3. Kindle devices: Although indic script is not supported, basic unicode characters are supported. However, numerous complex characters as well as left vowel sign i render incorrectly. At the moment, Kindle devices are not usable. Kindle app on various OS have different set of issues. We have decided to not focus on Amazon app and devices except to test for basic compatibility. 4. Sigil display is mostly correct but you can not rely on it. You must test each book on different device. Calibre reader is good. 5. TOC: HTML TOC can be made to use either native (iOS) or embedded fonts (android). Other TOC for iOS renders complex characters incorrectly. Android doe snot render any characters. 6. Metadata: Both Ibookstore and indie stores such as smashwords use its own meta data specified when you uploaded the book. They do not use metadata embedded in the book for search. Hence you may use Indic script within epub and latin when uploading the book. Do not use indic script when uploading the book because no one will be able to search for the book! 7. Since Android needs embedded font and iOS does not want it, there are techniques for creating one epub file that can be used on both and can be used to create MOBI file. 8. If you are embedding fonts, you could embed non-unicode fonts (I hate it but many have done that because their original content was in non-unicode font). 9. We have most experience with Gujarati ebooks and have tried some devnagari scripts. I believe Bangla will have similar issues. You can see fully working epub books at ekatrafoundation.org site or at smashwords. They are free -- we are following Project Gutenberg's model as in running a non-profit organization. I will be happy to discuss this further and share workarounds and templates that we have developed. We are too experimenting and learning as we create more books. You could write to me mashru2 [at] gmail [dot] com.