Embedded fonts? - Page 2

HarleyB · 12-17-2010, 02:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Take a look at the italics. Without the embedded font, what you'll see is a simulated italic where the letters are just tilted.

OK thanks for clarifying that - simulated or not I could tell they were italics - they certainly look different to the non italics and for me that's all that matters.

I'm sorry you feel differently but I think that most of us here are predominantly interested in the story not what font it appears in and perhaps that is why you appear to be gaining so little support for your cause.

3d0g · 12-17-2010, 07:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I'm sorry you don't care about a major bug.

The weird thing is, you're the only one claiming it as such. You realize neither the Kindle nor iPad support embedded fonts either, right?

djloewen · 12-17-2010, 08:31 AM

For me it's a matter of principle. In theory, the publisher designs the book exactly the way they want it to look, and that's what I want to see. Now I realize that we're still probably years away from such an ideal world, and that in practice, probably fewer than 20% of eBooks have actually had that much thought put in by the publisher. So, if Kobo is doing this to try to clean up the messes of most publishers, then, "I get it". But I still don't like it. I don't think it's appropriate for the device to ignore/override any detail, no matter how seemingly inconsequential, that is in the original file. Of course it hardly changes the actual reading experience, but it just doesn't sit right with me.

A simple solution (or maybe it's not simple, I don't know what the code looks like) would be to offer a Font preference under Settings that allows a choice between "use book defaults" or "use Kobo's fonts".

And for those of you who do want a more tangible reason why this is a (still small) problem - I recently read Kurt Vonnegut's "Breakfast of Champions". In the book one of the characters is described as having committed suicide by "eating Drāno" (that's the letter 'a' with a macron). On my lovely Kobo, which I love in every other way, the character ate "Dr?no".

baronrus · 12-17-2010, 08:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I'm sorry you don't care about a major bug.

If most people have to have it explained to them what your issue is I dont think you can reasonably refer to it as a 'major bug'.

I'm curious do you even have a Kobo? It's not listed in your signature?

stocksa · 12-17-2010, 09:04 AM

Now you know in english that - = ? What a great language we are evolving and we WILL TAKE OVER THE WORLD and ? will mean - Any one have a problem with that?
LOL

3d0g · 12-17-2010, 10:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by djloewen

For me it's a matter of principle. In theory, the publisher designs the book exactly the way they want it to look, and that's what I want to see. Now I realize that we're still probably years away from such an ideal world, and that in practice, probably fewer than 20% of eBooks have actually had that much thought put in by the publisher. So, if Kobo is doing this to try to clean up the messes of most publishers, then, "I get it". But I still don't like it. I don't think it's appropriate for the device to ignore/override any detail, no matter how seemingly inconsequential, that is in the original file. Of course it hardly changes the actual reading experience, but it just doesn't sit right with me.

While I understand your position, at some point, it becomes pedantic. ADE itself isn't fully compliant with embedded formatting - ask any Arabic user.

Additionally, the official EPUB specs make it crystal clear that support for embedded fonts is not a requirement.

So, While it's a feature you may wish for, by nobody's definition is it a "bug".

JSWolf · 12-17-2010, 10:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 3d0g

The weird thing is, you're the only one claiming it as such. You realize neither the Kindle nor iPad support embedded fonts either, right?

Actually, the iPad does with the correct app. Using the txr or Bluefire app, you can use ePub with embedded fonts. The Kindle already has true styles without the need to embed.

Psyke · 12-17-2010, 10:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Actually, the iPad does with the correct app. Using the txr or Bluefire app, you can use ePub with embedded fonts. The Kindle already has true styles without the need to embed.

But why do you feel this is a bug? I don't remember seeing it being advertised as being a feature, and if it had been, then yes, for sure it would be a bug.

But otherwise, this sounds like it should be more of a wish list item.

cheers!
Steph S.

3d0g · 12-17-2010, 11:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Actually, the iPad does with the correct app. Using the txr or Bluefire app, you can use ePub with embedded fonts. The Kindle already has true styles without the need to embed.

OK, but the native application, iBooks, does not. Does this mean if other apps are available that's an acceptable solution to you? The kobo is based on open source standards. Why don't you write a new renderer for it?

I don't own a Kindle so perhaps I'm confused but every spec and report I've seen clearly states the Kindle has built-in fonts, not media embedded. AZW can't do that. It does read the TOPAZ format which supports embedded fonts but all reports say the quality is horrible and it's highly unstable.

I continue to be confused why you harp on the little kobo when the two biggest eReaders in the industry don't do what you want either.

djloewen · 12-17-2010, 11:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 3d0g

So, While it's a feature you may wish for, by nobody's definition is it a "bug".

I agree that it shouldn't be referred to as a bug. I'd call it a feature request. And until it gets implemented, I'd call it an irk. I find it irksome

.

JSWolf · 12-17-2010, 01:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 3d0g

OK, but the native application, iBooks, does not. Does this mean if other apps are available that's an acceptable solution to you? The kobo is based on open source standards. Why don't you write a new renderer for it?

I don't own a Kindle so perhaps I'm confused but every spec and report I've seen clearly states the Kindle has built-in fonts, not media embedded. AZW can't do that. It does read the TOPAZ format which supports embedded fonts but all reports say the quality is horrible and it's highly unstable.

I continue to be confused why you harp on the little kobo when the two biggest eReaders in the industry don't do what you want either.

iBooks isn't native. It's an add-on just like txtr or Bluefire. Native means it comes with iOS and iBooks does not come with iOS.

JPenguin · 12-17-2010, 08:11 PM

I think that although it might not be 100% clear cut whether the embedded fonts issue on a body tag is a bug or a missing feature, one thing that is certain is that many people do not consider it a total show stopper. I hope Kobo do fix/implement this in the future but I didn't notice a huge problem when I was reading the Larsson books (this is not to say I don't care about typesetting, one reason I prefer using LaTeX over the more usual word processors like Word is because of the much nicer typesetting).

Also vis-a-vis the matter of principle, publishers designing things exactly as they want
- this will simply never happen with ePub, ePub was not designed for this. ePub was designed to reflow, reflow means typesetting needs to change. PDF was designed for creating documents which are exactly as designed, but as many-a-ereader-user knows, PDF are not ideal for ebooks since the size of the devices and preferred font-sizes require reflow.

Psyke · 12-17-2010, 11:09 PM

I actually got curious about this as I thought about it a little more, and decided to check something. I'm sure what I've found is probably known to most seasoned vets here, but I'm still an ebook noob, so I was a little confused about something.

So, I downloaded the epub version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo from my kobo account, and de-drm'd it (shhh). I then opened it up in Sigil and started to poke around. In the fonts folder, the only font's embedded into the epub container were Arial variants.

looking at Styles CSS file, I noticed a discrepancy...all the arial fonts are defined, each under it's own @font-face, so that's good, but when you look at what fonts were actually supposed to be used in the books structure, it's mostly listing "Times New Roman", everything but quotes, which turns out to be the email exchanges in the books, and this was arial.

So, I grabbed the Times new roman fonts from windows and put them into the fonts folder of the container, then defined @font-face for it, pointing to that new file, and low and behold, the Kobo displayed them. Now, I can admit that I can't see huge differences between relatively similar fonts, so I imported another font and re-defined it to replace the Times New Roman...this is what I got.

Now, again, I'm a newb, but this seems to me that the kobo can display embedded fonts well enough, but it really depends on if the book is coded properly or has the fonts it's looking for included with it in the first place...or am I missing something obvious?

pholy · 12-17-2010, 11:41 PM

Psyke, you've got it well enough. I think the only place a font selection will be ignored is in a body selector (perhaps html, as well). The Kobo gives the user the choice of serif or sans-serif at the body level, and the user interface gets complicated when you want to allow or dis-allow a publisher selected font as well. Down in the Workshop forums, there have been great discussions about how much control the user should have over the appearance of ebooks. And I've seen some people who believe the publisher is always right!

By the way, I wonder if the publisher actually obtained the rights to distribute those Ariel fonts... The Tex project does have substitutes, after all.

zoran · 12-18-2010, 12:36 AM

A little experiment Psyke made just proved what was obvious from
the very start. No company would play with proprietary fonts and
let them be added, so someone might blame the company for break-
ing the licenses. I do understand kobo on this issue. If one wants
to have <insert_font_name>, he/she has to do it by the hand. Step
further, if the font is inserted in the container, it is a different mat-
ter. Just months ago that was not existing and some future firmwa-
re could take that into account.
I might be wrong on the topic. To me it is clear that manufacturer
hesitates to implement guest font definition. Never read their opi-
nion on this.

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12-17-2010, 08:31 AM	#18
djloewen Connoisseur Posts: 52 Karma: 30 Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Toronto Device: Kobo eReader	For me it's a matter of principle. In theory, the publisher designs the book exactly the way they want it to look, and that's what I want to see. Now I realize that we're still probably years away from such an ideal world, and that in practice, probably fewer than 20% of eBooks have actually had that much thought put in by the publisher. So, if Kobo is doing this to try to clean up the messes of most publishers, then, "I get it". But I still don't like it. I don't think it's appropriate for the device to ignore/override any detail, no matter how seemingly inconsequential, that is in the original file. Of course it hardly changes the actual reading experience, but it just doesn't sit right with me. A simple solution (or maybe it's not simple, I don't know what the code looks like) would be to offer a Font preference under Settings that allows a choice between "use book defaults" or "use Kobo's fonts". And for those of you who do want a more tangible reason why this is a (still small) problem - I recently read Kurt Vonnegut's "Breakfast of Champions". In the book one of the characters is described as having committed suicide by "eating Drāno" (that's the letter 'a' with a macron). On my lovely Kobo, which I love in every other way, the character ate "Dr?no".

12-17-2010, 09:04 AM	#20
stocksa John Posts: 12 Karma: 152 Join Date: Dec 2010 Device: Kobo	Now you know in english that - = ? What a great language we are evolving and we WILL TAKE OVER THE WORLD and ? will mean - Any one have a problem with that? LOL

12-17-2010, 08:11 PM	#27
JPenguin Connoisseur Posts: 90 Karma: 42 Join Date: May 2010 Location: Toronto Device: Kobo EReader, Kobo for Palm Pre	I think that although it might not be 100% clear cut whether the embedded fonts issue on a body tag is a bug or a missing feature, one thing that is certain is that many people do not consider it a total show stopper. I hope Kobo do fix/implement this in the future but I didn't notice a huge problem when I was reading the Larsson books (this is not to say I don't care about typesetting, one reason I prefer using LaTeX over the more usual word processors like Word is because of the much nicer typesetting). Also vis-a-vis the matter of principle, publishers designing things exactly as they want - this will simply never happen with ePub, ePub was not designed for this. ePub was designed to reflow, reflow means typesetting needs to change. PDF was designed for creating documents which are exactly as designed, but as many-a-ereader-user knows, PDF are not ideal for ebooks since the size of the devices and preferred font-sizes require reflow.

12-17-2010, 11:09 PM	#28
Psyke Evangelist Posts: 482 Karma: 534340 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Ottawa/Canada Device: Kobo Wi-Fi - Kobo Touch - GNex - N7	I actually got curious about this as I thought about it a little more, and decided to check something. I'm sure what I've found is probably known to most seasoned vets here, but I'm still an ebook noob, so I was a little confused about something. So, I downloaded the epub version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo from my kobo account, and de-drm'd it (shhh). I then opened it up in Sigil and started to poke around. In the fonts folder, the only font's embedded into the epub container were Arial variants. looking at Styles CSS file, I noticed a discrepancy...all the arial fonts are defined, each under it's own @font-face, so that's good, but when you look at what fonts were actually supposed to be used in the books structure, it's mostly listing "Times New Roman", everything but quotes, which turns out to be the email exchanges in the books, and this was arial. So, I grabbed the Times new roman fonts from windows and put them into the fonts folder of the container, then defined @font-face for it, pointing to that new file, and low and behold, the Kobo displayed them. Now, I can admit that I can't see huge differences between relatively similar fonts, so I imported another font and re-defined it to replace the Times New Roman...this is what I got. Now, again, I'm a newb, but this seems to me that the kobo can display embedded fonts well enough, but it really depends on if the book is coded properly or has the fonts it's looking for included with it in the first place...or am I missing something obvious?

12-17-2010, 11:41 PM	#29
pholy Booklegger Posts: 1,801 Karma: 7999816 Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada Device: BeBook(1 & 2010), PEZ, PRS-505, Kobo BT, PRS-T1, Playbook, Kobo Touch	Psyke, you've got it well enough. I think the only place a font selection will be ignored is in a body selector (perhaps html, as well). The Kobo gives the user the choice of serif or sans-serif at the body level, and the user interface gets complicated when you want to allow or dis-allow a publisher selected font as well. Down in the Workshop forums, there have been great discussions about how much control the user should have over the appearance of ebooks. And I've seen some people who believe the publisher is always right! By the way, I wonder if the publisher actually obtained the rights to distribute those Ariel fonts... The Tex project does have substitutes, after all.

12-18-2010, 12:36 AM	#30
zoran himself Posts: 576 Karma: 11226 Join Date: May 2010 Device: Kobo	A little experiment Psyke made just proved what was obvious from the very start. No company would play with proprietary fonts and let them be added, so someone might blame the company for break- ing the licenses. I do understand kobo on this issue. If one wants to have <insert_font_name>, he/she has to do it by the hand. Step further, if the font is inserted in the container, it is a different mat- ter. Just months ago that was not existing and some future firmwa- re could take that into account. I might be wrong on the topic. To me it is clear that manufacturer hesitates to implement guest font definition. Never read their opi- nion on this.

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