Font issues - Chinese, Japanese, English

Elfwreck · 06-23-2023, 05:37 PM

I read on a Pocketbook Touch HD3, although that may change, and this is likely not a device-specific issue.

I am looking for a font that will show English, Chinese, and Japanese characters. Found Arial Unicode - but it doesn't support italics.

The situation: I'm downloading fanfic from AO3 as epubs. They come without fonts embedded. I can add fonts to the ereader (and I have), but embedding fonts in every single epub is a lot more work than I'm willing to deal with.

With most of the fonts in the ereader, non-US characters don't show up at all. One of them is obviously designed for those characters and it's horrible for English. (AR PL New Sung; it also doesn't show italics.) I'm not reading in Chinese or Japanese; I'm dealing with occasional words scattered through the stories, which don't even show up as squares or question marks, so sometimes the phrasing seems really odd (because I'm not seeing a word), and sometimes there's multiple blank lines that are apparently poetry I can't see.

Is there

A font I can embed, that has italics and supports Chinese and Japanese characters? or
An easy way to embed maybe Arial and run a script to update the CSS to use it for italics/bold? or
Some other way to let me see the full text of the stories I've downloaded?

I've gone into the /system/fonts folder. It was empty. There was /system/adobe/fonts which had... links? to the fonts listed in the settings, but the links didn't seem to go anywhere. But they apparently work as fonts.

I'm currently using the "default" font, which is a serif font. (Not my preference. I like slab serifs on ereaders. ... any chance Caecilia or something like it will have the character support I want?)

salamanderjuice · 06-26-2023, 09:18 AM

Noto Serif CJK JP (or Sans if you prefer) has italics for latin characters unless LibreOffice is lying to me. When you mean Chinese characters do you mean Chinese characters as used in Chinese or used in Japanese? There is some differences in how some characters appear because of simplifications done over the years independently and I don't think it's possible to use one font to display them all correctly.

Elfwreck · 06-30-2023, 11:07 PM

Thanks; I'll try it! (But LibreOffice may be lying to you - I know Word will happily display italics for fonts that don't have them, by tilting the letters. But they won't show as italicized in ereaders unless the font has italic support.)

I do not care how accurate the characters are because I read neither Japanese nor Chinese - I read fanfic in English that occasionally has Japanese or Chinese names or short phrases, and it was getting disorienting to read paragraphs where some words were just... missing, because the font I had just skipped them entirely.

I don't want a font that will display them as little boxes with question marks, but that'd be better than what I have.

(It is possible that, at some point, I will learn to read some Japanese.

06-23-2023, 05:37 PM	#1
Elfwreck Grand Sorcerer Posts: 5,187 Karma: 25133758 Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: SF Bay Area, California, USA Device: Pocketbook Touch HD3 (Past: Kobo Mini, PEZ, PRS-505, Clié)	Font issues - Chinese, Japanese, English I read on a Pocketbook Touch HD3, although that may change, and this is likely not a device-specific issue. I am looking for a font that will show English, Chinese, and Japanese characters. Found Arial Unicode - but it doesn't support italics. The situation: I'm downloading fanfic from AO3 as epubs. They come without fonts embedded. I can add fonts to the ereader (and I have), but embedding fonts in every single epub is a lot more work than I'm willing to deal with. With most of the fonts in the ereader, non-US characters don't show up at all. One of them is obviously designed for those characters and it's horrible for English. (AR PL New Sung; it also doesn't show italics.) I'm not reading in Chinese or Japanese; I'm dealing with occasional words scattered through the stories, which don't even show up as squares or question marks, so sometimes the phrasing seems really odd (because I'm not seeing a word), and sometimes there's multiple blank lines that are apparently poetry I can't see. Is there A font I can embed, that has italics and supports Chinese and Japanese characters? or An easy way to embed maybe Arial and run a script to update the CSS to use it for italics/bold? or Some other way to let me see the full text of the stories I've downloaded? I've gone into the /system/fonts folder. It was empty. There was /system/adobe/fonts which had... links? to the fonts listed in the settings, but the links didn't seem to go anywhere. But they apparently work as fonts. I'm currently using the "default" font, which is a serif font. (Not my preference. I like slab serifs on ereaders. ... any chance Caecilia or something like it will have the character support I want?)

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
PRS-T1 PRS-T1 Japanese version have japanese-english dic in it?	nukito	Sony Reader	2	06-14-2012 02:37 PM
PRS-950 Chinese, Korean, Japanese System Font Sony PRS 950	jessie102	Sony Reader Dev Corner	15	03-22-2011 06:28 PM
A Simplified Chinese + English font that actually looks good	macroexp	Sony Reader Dev Corner	5	12-24-2010 11:08 PM
Chinese or Japanese on the Cybook.	llwwss	Bookeen	22	02-11-2010 05:16 AM
Best Chinese & Japanese font for contentlister	ericshliao	iRex	6	02-15-2008 10:22 AM

06-26-2023, 09:18 AM	#2
salamanderjuice Guru Posts: 907 Karma: 12671918 Join Date: Jul 2017 Device: Boox Nova 2	Noto Serif CJK JP (or Sans if you prefer) has italics for latin characters unless LibreOffice is lying to me. When you mean Chinese characters do you mean Chinese characters as used in Chinese or used in Japanese? There is some differences in how some characters appear because of simplifications done over the years independently and I don't think it's possible to use one font to display them all correctly.

06-30-2023, 11:07 PM	#3
Elfwreck Grand Sorcerer Posts: 5,187 Karma: 25133758 Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: SF Bay Area, California, USA Device: Pocketbook Touch HD3 (Past: Kobo Mini, PEZ, PRS-505, Clié)	Thanks; I'll try it! (But LibreOffice may be lying to you - I know Word will happily display italics for fonts that don't have them, by tilting the letters. But they won't show as italicized in ereaders unless the font has italic support.) I do not care how accurate the characters are because I read neither Japanese nor Chinese - I read fanfic in English that occasionally has Japanese or Chinese names or short phrases, and it was getting disorienting to read paragraphs where some words were just... missing, because the font I had just skipped them entirely. I don't want a font that will display them as little boxes with question marks, but that'd be better than what I have. (It is possible that, at some point, I will learn to read some Japanese.

Advert