Font problem - DejaVu Serif Condensed

[Section8]

I am running Koreader 2025.04 on a Kindle PW4, and have a problem with one font.

Although it appears as a choice in the koreader fonts menu, I cannot switch to the "DejaVu Serif Condensed" font. When I try to select it, the check box in the font menu is not checked, and the document font is not changed.

To be sure, I connected the kindle to my PC, and updated the DejaVu fonts from the fonts installed by the Arch linux "extra/ttf-dejavu" package. So now the koreader/fonts/DejaVu directory looks like this:

[john@officepc DejaVu]$ pwd
/run/media/john/Kindle/koreader/fonts/DejaVu
[john@officepc DejaVu]$ ll
total 2.8M
-rw-r--r-- 1 john john 372K Mar 18  2024 DejaVuSerif.ttf
-rw-r--r-- 1 john john 340K Mar 18  2024 DejaVuSerifCondensed.ttf
-rw-r--r-- 1 john john 325K Mar 18  2024 DejaVuSerifCondensed-Bold.ttf
-rw-r--r-- 1 john john 339K Mar 18  2024 DejaVuSerifCondensed-BoldItalic.ttf
-rw-r--r-- 1 john john 338K Mar 18  2024 DejaVuSerifCondensed-Italic.ttf
-rw-r--r-- 1 john john 349K Mar 18  2024 DejaVuSerif-Bold.ttf
-rw-r--r-- 1 john john 340K Mar 18  2024 DejaVuSerif-BoldItalic.ttf
-rw-r--r-- 1 john john 339K Mar 18  2024 DejaVuSerif-Italic.ttf
[john@officepc DejaVu]$

In this state, I can change the epub font to "DejaVu Serif" in koreader, but not "DejaVu Serif Condensed".

Any help trouble shooting this?

[jackm8]

Problem could be DejaVuSerif conflicting with DejaVuSerif Condensed. They are probably named as same family of fonts. Try completely removing DejaVuSerif from fonts directory, and only leaving DejaVuSerifCondensed. Restart your device, then see if SejaVuSerifCondensed works. If it does, look into renaming DejavuSerifCondensed. Not just renaming the files, but renaming font family of all four condensed fonts in a program like FontForge.

[Section8]

Thank you for the reply. If I remove DejaVuSerif from the koreader/fonts directory, leaving DejaVu Serif Condensed as the only DejaVu font in the koreader font menu, this still happens - I can't select DejaVu Serif Condensed.

I have done some more testing on this. I have koreader 2025.04 installed on my linux desktop via flatpak. If I turn on "Enable system fonts" in the font settings there, I can see the DejaVu fonts in the font menu.

2025.04 has the same problem on linux - I can select other fonts, but not DejaVuSerifCondensed. With flatpak, I am able to downgrade koreader to 2024.04, so I tested the older versions.

Koreader 2024.04 and 2024.11 don't have this problem - I am able to select any font there, including DejaVuSerifCondensed. It is only a problem in 2025.04.

I noticed something else while testing different versions. If I have a book open in koreader 2024.11, using DejaVuSerifCondensed, then close koreader, upgrade to 2025.04, and re-open the same book, 2025.04 is successfully using DejaVuSerifCondensed. The problem only happens if I change fonts - now I can't change back to DejaVuSerifCondensed.

[jackm8]

That's as much as I know. I've just tested DejaVuSerif fonts on my Kindle in Koreader and they work on my side.

Fonts from: https://github.com/dejavu-fonts/deja...g/version_2_37
I installed all Serif fonts into DejaVuSerif directory in Koreader Fonts folder. Both DejaVuSerif and DejaVuSerif Condensed show up in Koreader, and they work when selected.

Kindle Scribe gen1
KoReader v2024.11-267-g29908800b_2025-03-25
Internal Storage/Fonts (no fonts here)
Internal Storage/Koreader/Fonts/DejaVuSerif/ (all DejaVuSerif fonts here)

[Section8]

I found a workaround, without having to backlevel koreader. I renamed all the fonts in the family from DejaVuSerifCondensed to DejaVuSerifCond, using fontforge, and it looks like they are working now.