I've been trying to get font embedding to work in my books (for KDP) for months with no success. KDP support has said "we're busy researching" or "you're doing it wrong, do it like we say"...
The problem is that from the VERY beginning I have done it the way they say to do it. They say that they "recently changed" how embedding is supposed to be specified, but that is how I have always done it, because the way Kindle handles it is to specify in CSS, which is exactly how it's done for epub.
I create in Sigil, and upload and epub (with a couple of small format changes like the cover image being large and not declared as a separate html file and metadata switch to mobi format) to KDP. When the resultant file is produced, fonts have been completely stripped. (Confirmed using MobiUnpacker.)
I have tried using different fonts, and different types of fonts. My files convert cleanly in Kindle Previewer (in Windows) and Calibre. The resultant mobi files, when uploaded to KDP, have the fonts stripped from them.
I have spent literally weeks of work on this issue to no avail. I've tried dozens of different options of what type of font, which font, what converter I run a font through, etc. Nothing matters.
I am at a complete loss as to why this is happening. I have slammed my head against the wall of KDP support for months, and am quite frankly left with 3 options. 1) ask here, 2) try and strike a deal with a "pro" to embed the fonts (I need literally no formatting, just the fonts to survive upload), or 3) chew my way further up the Amazon chain.
So, as far as following the guidelines go, I have declared @font-face as Amazon recommends (the only place they talk about it is in their fixed-layout section, but relatively obviously, it's how you need to declare for a normal ebook as well.
An example of how I am calling fonts in the books:
(obviously in Styles\core-styles.css)
@font-face {
font-family : display-font;
font-weight : normal;
font-style: normal;
src : url("../Fonts/display-font.ttf");
}
As it should be, the .ttf, or .otf file I refer to is always contained in the Fonts directory. I have verified that these fonts are then absent in the files which come back from Amazon's KDP converter. (I have also attempted to remove the font-weight and font-style css elements to no avail. They don;t seem to make a difference one way or another for this issue.)
When I call a font, I am doing so like this:
p.toc-minor {
font-family : display-font;
text-indent: 0;
margin: 0 0 0.2em 0;
font-size: 125%;
}
The css styles are then called in the html files like so:
<p class="toc-minor"><a href="../Text/TitlePage.xhtml">Title Page</a></p>
This should result in a slightly larger than normal, unindented display font version of the words "Title Page" that has only a small bottom margin. That's in fact exactly what it does...everywhere but on the KDP-converted file.
***
I appreciate any wisdom that anyone might possibly be able to share. I am an absolute perfectionist where it comes to getting things to display as well as possible cross-platform. I am attempting to follow the feel of the print version and make it so that ebook buyers at Amazon have an experience similar to those at Barnes & Noble or Kobo, or wherever.
But at this point I am completely baffled by why I can format something perfectly (even using Amazon's own desktop software) and have it fail time and time again on upload.
KDP support is convinced that my code is the problem. But if that's the case, they have yet to be able to point out exactly what I'm doing wrong. Maybe one of you can.