Is This a Bug? (fonts)

[sarco]

Howdy all!

I use Sigil often. I'm very grateful to the developers.

But I've noticed what appears to be a bug. I also have a workaround for it.

When exporting a book from Indesign to epub 2.01 with fonts embedded, everything looks great in Sigil. But when opening the epub in Kindle Previewer 3, the fonts don't show, as if they are not embedded.

The fix I've found is to delete the font files in Sigil, save the epub, then add the fonts again. (What I actually do is save the font files to the Windows directory I'm working in, then delete the fonts in Sigil, save, and add them from the directory.)

I hope this helps someone!

Sarco

[DiapDealer]

InDesign is probably defaulting to obfuscating/encrypting any embedded fonts when exporting to epub. That's what it used to do, anyway. And although, Sigil is perfectly capable of displaying those obfuscated/encrypted fonts, Kindle Publishing Guidelines specify that embedded fonts must not be obfuscated in the epubs being used to create Kindlebooks. Amazon adds their own obfuscation to fonts embedded in their books.

So in short ... this is not a Sigil bug. This is the fault of InDesign not allowing epubs to be saved with non-obfuscated, embedded fonts (or it wouldn't last time I checked, anyway).

So in essence, what you're doing is deleting the obfuscated fonts from the epub and then correctly re-adding the non-obfuscated ones. That's one way of working around the InDesign issue. There is another way.

Sigil is capable of unobfuscating (and obfuscating) fonts that are encrypted with the standard Adobe or IDPF font obfuscation algorithms. Right-click on any font-file in Sigil's Book Browser and see what is set in the Font Obfuscation submenu of the context menu. If either the Adobe or IDPF obfuscation is checked, then you should be able to select "None" to remove the obfuscation. Save the epub. You should now be able to use KindlePreviewer to view/convert your epub with embedded fonts.

Just realize that you may not have a legal right to redistribute the fonts you've embedded via InDesign--obfuscated or not. Always check the font license to see if you can legally distribute it with your ebook.

[sarco]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

So in essence, what you're doing is deleting the obfuscated fonts from the epub and then correctly re-adding the non-obfuscated ones. That's one way of working around the InDesign issue. There is another way.

As I said in the OP, I'm saving the fonts to the working directory, then loading the exact same font files back into Sigil. So I don't think Indesign is obfuscating or encrypting the fonts. At least not in a way that sticks to the font files. But it must be sending some code to the epub to obfuscate them.

Also, as a subscriber to Adobe Suite, I have full use to distribute their commercial fonts, and most of the other fonts I use are free for commercial use so there is no font stealing going on here, but anyway that is way off topic.

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Right-click on any font-file in Sigil's Book Browser and see what is set in the Font Obfuscation submenu of the context menu. If either the Adobe or IDPF obfuscation is checked, then you should be able to select "None" to remove the obfuscation. Save the epub. You should now be able to use KindlePreviewer to view/convert your epub with embedded fonts.

I just checked and it says "Use IDPFs Method" in a file I haven't fixed, and "None" in a corrected version, so that is a much better workaround. Thanks!

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by sarco

So I don't think Indesign is obfuscating or encrypting the fonts. At least not in a way that sticks to the font files. But it must be sending some code to the epub to obfuscate them.

Yes. That is exactly what it does. It obfuscates the fonts embedded in the exported epub. Not the system font-files themselves. There are standard ways of obfuscating fonts included in epub archives, and Indesign is a stickler for doing it to every font that gets embedded into an epub it exports.

Originally Posted by sarco

Also, as a subscriber to Adobe Suite, I have full use to distribute their commercial fonts,

"Full use to distribute" seems a bit unlikely to me. I suspect there are quite a few limitations to your usage rights. But I won't argue with you about it further--it's your ass and not mine.

Originally Posted by sarco

I just checked and it says "Use IDPFs Method" in a file I haven't fixed, and "None" in a corrected version, so that is a much better workaround. Thanks!

No problem.