KoboTouch displaying boxes instead of cyrillic characters

mewakitty · 07-28-2012, 02:06 PM

Hi everyone,

I'm a long time lurker, but finally had to register to ask my question. I own an older Kobo (not touch, the one with the button), and I got Cyrillic fonts (Russian books) displaying on it fine.

Just bought this Kobo Touch and I'm already at wit's end. I keep getting little empty boxes displayed instead of letters. The letters appear fine in menus (the title and author name are readable), but the book itself is complete garbage.

I have tried the fb2toepub converter (specifying LiberationSerif fonts). I tried opening up the epub and editing css files (like I had previously done). None of it seems to help.

Is it the new firmware? If so, is there a way to revert back? I'm not really sure what to do at this point, as this was supposed to be a birthday present, but it's driving me mad. Any help would be appreciated.

mewakitty · 07-28-2012, 02:38 PM

I appear to have narrowed it down to this new firmware. I downgraded to 1.9.12 (a little weird, but we'll see how it goes) and now letters are displayed. The fact that support was taken out with a new update is somewhat disheartening.

rjcroy · 07-28-2012, 04:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mewakitty

I appear to have narrowed it down to this new firmware. I downgraded to 1.9.12 (a little weird, but we'll see how it goes) and now letters are displayed. The fact that support was taken out with a new update is somewhat disheartening.

I think we can assume this is a temporary bug that will be fixed in the next release. At least I hope so!

PeterT · 07-28-2012, 06:02 PM

As Taming said elsewhere

Quote:

Originally Posted by taming

If I remember correctly, Delima is one of the fonts that does NOT have a full set of diacritical marks. That could explain the square in this instance. You will also get squares if the text has unicode ligatures that are not included in the font set.

The fact that setting the Kobo to use the Document Default does not result in boxes and Delima does would tend to support the idea that the embedded fonts are being recognized. I would hope that if someone goes to the trouble to embed a font, they they would make sure that the font set they are using has everything they need.

This is (educated) guess work not anything I know for sure.

clsdclsd · 07-28-2012, 08:37 PM

The 2.0.2 version contains a better Georgia font, with Cyrillic characters, so you can read russian by installing it and choosing Georgia from the font list.

http://download.kobobooks.com/firmwa...date-2.0.2.zip

taming · 07-29-2012, 05:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rjcroy

I think we can assume this is a temporary bug that will be fixed in the next release. At least I hope so!

Yes. It will. Has anyone tried getting Cyrillic with the other fonts in 2.0, in particular Ryumin or Gothic MB101?

clsdclsd · 07-29-2012, 06:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by taming

Yes. It will. Has anyone tried getting Cyrillic with the other fonts in 2.0, in particular Ryumin or Gothic MB101?

Those are for japanese texts. Both have some basic (Helvetica and Roman-like) latin and cyrillic characters, but only in regular - text in italics or bold results empty squares.
The only font type with extended latin (and cyrillic) character set is the Georgia in 2.0.2.

taming · 07-29-2012, 06:38 AM

Thanks for checking. I did not feel like adding in a Russian book to check myself. Call me lazy.

clsdclsd · 07-29-2012, 07:05 AM

To be honest, i didn't do that either :-) I've tested it with hungarian, and checked the font files for character sets - it seems the one which misses hungarian, misses cyrillic too, so I'm pretty sure they work the same.
The lack of italic and bold of those font can be checked in english books too. It seems that the Kobo substitutes bold text with regular and italics with Georgia-Italic, so I might be wrong about the empty boxes but sill not usable.

07-28-2012, 02:06 PM	#1
mewakitty Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jul 2012 Device: Kobo	KoboTouch displaying boxes instead of cyrillic characters Hi everyone, I'm a long time lurker, but finally had to register to ask my question. I own an older Kobo (not touch, the one with the button), and I got Cyrillic fonts (Russian books) displaying on it fine. Just bought this Kobo Touch and I'm already at wit's end. I keep getting little empty boxes displayed instead of letters. The letters appear fine in menus (the title and author name are readable), but the book itself is complete garbage. I have tried the fb2toepub converter (specifying LiberationSerif fonts). I tried opening up the epub and editing css files (like I had previously done). None of it seems to help. Is it the new firmware? If so, is there a way to revert back? I'm not really sure what to do at this point, as this was supposed to be a birthday present, but it's driving me mad. Any help would be appreciated.

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07-28-2012, 02:38 PM	#2
mewakitty Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jul 2012 Device: Kobo	I appear to have narrowed it down to this new firmware. I downgraded to 1.9.12 (a little weird, but we'll see how it goes) and now letters are displayed. The fact that support was taken out with a new update is somewhat disheartening.

07-28-2012, 08:37 PM	#5
clsdclsd Zealot Posts: 105 Karma: 37668 Join Date: Feb 2012 Device: Kobo Touch	The 2.0.2 version contains a better Georgia font, with Cyrillic characters, so you can read russian by installing it and choosing Georgia from the font list. http://download.kobobooks.com/firmwa...date-2.0.2.zip

07-29-2012, 06:38 AM	#8
taming Trying for calm & polite Posts: 4,012 Karma: 9455193 Join Date: May 2010 Location: Mostly in Canada Device: kobo original, WiFI, Touch, Glo, and Aura	Thanks for checking. I did not feel like adding in a Russian book to check myself. Call me lazy.

07-29-2012, 07:05 AM	#9
clsdclsd Zealot Posts: 105 Karma: 37668 Join Date: Feb 2012 Device: Kobo Touch	To be honest, i didn't do that either :-) I've tested it with hungarian, and checked the font files for character sets - it seems the one which misses hungarian, misses cyrillic too, so I'm pretty sure they work the same. The lack of italic and bold of those font can be checked in english books too. It seems that the Kobo substitutes bold text with regular and italics with Georgia-Italic, so I might be wrong about the empty boxes but sill not usable.

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