Bookerly font woes

[JSWolf]

I cannot speak of the unhinted Bookerly on a Kobo, but I've seen photos of the unhinted Bookerly on a Kindle and if the size is small enough, it doesn't look good. So in this case the hinting is needed at least for Kindles.

[stumped]

so, historically, was Bookerly launched without hinting on Kindles, then hinting got added later, as an "upgrade" ?

i remember a lot of Amazon bragging as to how great it was, when first launched, but all quiet since then

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by stumped

so, historically, was Bookerly launched without hinting on Kindles, then hinting got added later, as an "upgrade" ?

i remember a lot of Amazon bragging as to how great it was, when first launched, but all quiet since then

Bookerly was launched with hinting and now the hinting has been removed.

[stumped]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Bookerly was launched with hinting and now the hinting has been removed.

That's strange ,as you and others here are saying that With Hinting is better ?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by stumped

That's strange ,as you and others here are saying that With Hinting is better ?

Have a look at this post and you'll see a sample of the Bookerly problem.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...3&postcount=77

The problem started in Kindle firmware 5.12.3.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...3&postcount=77

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by stumped

ah- so its Hinting, not Tinting, explains why my google search results were rubbish

is this one of those things where 99% of people cannot see the difference anyway, or is it worth learning about ( I am Ok with how my font looks as at now )

If you are happy with how your font looks at the largest and smallest sizes you use, I wouldn't worry about hinting or the lack of it.

[NiLuJe]

FWIW, I agree with @DNSB, I prefer unhinted rendering on high-dpi eInk devices.

Unfortunately, it's harder to actually achieve in practice than one might hope with stock readers (because most of 'em will actually heuristically compute hinting on their own if the font is unhinted), which is why good hinting is preferable to no hinting that gets mangled by the rendering engine (hi, Access! ), or bad hinting, or hinting that also gets mangled by the rendering engine (hi, iType!).

But, as always, try it, and see what *you* prefer in *your* usual reading conditions.
Because while I may certainly be *extremely* picky about font rendering, that may not be your case, or it may not be as relevant given your usual settings.

[Gone]

Originally Posted by hukka

That'll teach me to use the search feature before posting. Problem solved! Just had to rename the files and do a power cycle.

Thanks for the replies!

Like you said, the fonts just need to be renamed.

Bookerly-a (regular)
Bookerly-b (italic)
Bookerly-c (bold)
Bookerly-d (bold italic)

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Claude_C

Like you said, the fonts just need to be renamed.

Bookerly-a (regular)
Bookerly-b (italic)
Bookerly-c (bold)
Bookerly-d (bold italic)

Bookerly-Regular
Bookerly-Italic
Bookerly-Bold
Booklerly-BoldItalic

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Bookerly-Regular
Bookerly-Italic
Bookerly-Bold
Booklerly-BoldItalic

@Claude_C may be correct about this alternative naming convention. I seem to remember someone else posting the same thing a long time ago. I don't know where that info was originally documented.

I've never tested it myself because it was long after I'd already done the renaming/setting the hard way on the fonts I wanted to use. If it does work and can be done without needing FontForge it could be a good thing.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

@Claude_C may be correct about this alternative naming convention. I seem to remember someone else posting the same thing a long time ago. I don't know where that info was originally documented.

I've never tested it myself because it was long after I'd already done the renaming/setting the hard way on the fonts I wanted to use. If it does work and can be done without needing FontForge it could be a good thing.

Why do you need FontForge just to rename font files?

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Why do you need FontForge just to rename font files?

Because some of the issues are with how the fonts are named internally, not just their file name. I'm not sure if Bookerly was one such font, but it's been an issue in the past.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Claude_C

Like you said, the fonts just need to be renamed.

Bookerly-a (regular)
Bookerly-b (italic)
Bookerly-c (bold)
Bookerly-d (bold italic)

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Bookerly-Regular
Bookerly-Italic
Bookerly-Bold
Booklerly-BoldItalic

The alternate font file naming conversion would be:

Bookerly
Bookerly-i
Bookerly-b
Bookerly-z

The regular version of the font does not need the special naming but I prefer using -Regular just to keep things consistent.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by DNSB

The alternate font file naming conversion would be:

Bookerly
Bookerly-i
Bookerly-b
Bookerly-z

Are you sure about the hyphen? The built-in Georgia is named
georgia
georgiai
geargiab
georgiaz

I expect everyone is thoroughly bemused by now.

[NiLuJe]

@jackie_w:

My current methodology doesn't require Fontforge (it still helps to get an idea of which values to use if you intend to tweak vertical metrics, though).
On the other hand, it requires a working Python 3 setup w/ pip .

(i.e., pick your poison ^^).

----

The nametable-from-filename step does expect you to follow the full naming convention, though, not the weird Windows one (which prooooobably dates back to 8.3 filename limitations?).