PRS-T1 Best font on PRS T1?

[Bookworm_Girl]

I did a series of tests with your file changing font type and sizes and exiting/reopening the book. It seems completely random. I had the same results for each variation of paragraphs though. For example, either all of the bolds worked or none of the bolds worked.

[Kolenka]

If the italics/bolds don't work, I've found (at least for me) they come back if I select the font again from the menu (even though it is already selected).

It seems random-ish to me. Opening other books, and changing their font can screw up the first book, which is weird. But the ways to get it to screw up has been pretty consistent for me. Usually the fastest way is to change the font in another book, oddly enough.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

I did a series of tests with your file changing font type and sizes and exiting/reopening the book. It seems completely random. I had the same results for each variation of paragraphs though. For example, either all of the bolds worked or none of the bolds worked.

Thanks. That sounds consistent with what I found.

@Kolenka - interesting, I'll play around with that a bit more tomorrow.

[Edit:]I tried many and varying combinations of reselecting an already-selected font plus changing font-size. Sad to say that, although I could sometimes get italics back on the page I happened to be on, I couldn't ensure that they would be correct on other pages. Whether I just didn't find the right magic combination, I don't know.

I think I'll stick to embedding and hope Sony sort it out on the next model. An update for the T1 would be nice, but I'm not holding my breath.

[Kolenka]

After playing around with my own ePubs, it seems like the T1 will tend to catch italics or bold, but not both. The page you are on will determine which you get (in that a page will always seem to go one way or another, but a particular page doesn't always seem to do what I'd expect). Any pre-rendered pages might be a factor as well.

It's like whatever override they use doesn't actually catch everything correctly, or that it tries to actually auto-generate CSS in a way that doesn't always work right. It's as if they tried to get too fancy and it backfired.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Interesting. I'll see if I notice that. In the test that I did for jackie_w, I had both italics and bold show at the same time and just about every other combination too. The only combo I didn't see was bold + bold-italic. I did have italics + bold-italic and also bold + italics.

[Kolenka]

Hmm, I went back and noticed the bold what wasn't going bold was marked 'bolder'. Tweaked the CSS to be 'bold' and it worked correctly. Interesting.

EDIT: Still getting the situation where some will work, and some won't depending on the page I set the font on. Depending on the tag it is found on. It's rather weird. So I can get say, my bold h1 and italics, or my italics and bold strong tags. Or I can get just the bold h1 and nothing else.

[jackie_w]

It's really difficult to understand how Sony have managed to code this in such a convoluted manner. The fact that fully embedded fonts do work in the normal way implies that the epub font-rendering mechanism isn't completely messed up.

With many epubs, to change default font ought to be as simple as adding the 4 appropriate @font-face statements to css. Presumably Sony know where the 4 Amasis font files are stored in internal memory. It's a mystery

@Kolenka, Can your better technical know-how of the inner workings shed any light on why the other old @font-face method no longer works?

[pssquirrel]

This is probably a stupid question revealing my css ignorance, but what happens when you simply add body {font-family: Amasis} to the book's css file (without adding any @font-face rules). Does anything happen at all?

I ask because publishers routinely use {font-family: serif}, {font-family: sans-serif} and {font-family: monospace} to call for default serif, sans-serif, and monospace fonts. So I'm wondering if you call for Amasis or Verdana in the css, will the T1 know what to do? (Though not knowing exactly what the T1 calls each font-family -- e.g., is it simply "Amasis" or "AmasisSY" or "AmasisWhoKnowsWhat" -- is likely the first and biggest obstacle.)

[jackie_w]

Well, I tried the font-family: Amasis test. No go I'm afraid. All it does is stop you changing font at all on the T1. Presumably because the T1 does not recognise the label 'Amasis'.

[Kolenka]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

@Kolenka, Can your better technical know-how of the inner workings shed any light on why the other old @font-face method no longer works?

I'm not sure what you mean by that question. Do you mean pointing to external fonts? If that's the case, there were a couple posts on the PRS+ thread that pointed out that the path to the internal memory and SD card is entirely different than older models. I think the updated paths were posted there too.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by Kolenka

I'm not sure what you mean by that question. Do you mean pointing to external fonts? If that's the case, there were a couple posts on the PRS+ thread that pointed out that the path to the internal memory and SD card is entirely different than older models. I think the updated paths were posted there too.

Yes I tried these locations

Internal memory root is now res:///mnt/sdcard
SD card root is res:///mnt/extsd

But neither of these work as a replacement for res:///Data to point to external fonts.

I just wondered if you had any insight as to why this won't work anymore.

On the older models, if you really wanted to, you could add css @font-faces to point to the LRF font files in IM in the non-user accessible area e.g.

@font-face {font-family: serif; src:url(res:///opt/sony/ebook/FONT/tt0011m_.ttf)

I don't know what the equivalent filenames are for the built-in fonts on the PRST1. If we knew their locations, this might be worth a try.

[democrite]

Originally Posted by log

I've been trying to use Amasis wherever possible, think it looks the best to my eyes.

I also like Amasis. Hopefully a future firmware will let you select a default.

[pssquirrel]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Well, I tried the font-family: Amasis test. No go I'm afraid. All it does is stop you changing font at all on the T1. Presumably because the T1 does not recognise the label 'Amasis'.

<sigh> Figured it was a long shot, but I appreciate your trying it anyway. And thanks for posting the filepaths above. Frustrating that they don't work for installing custom fonts. This is all very perplexing.

[Nick_1964]

I have 2 PRS-T1 and they crash all the time, so I send them back, but I did love the fonts so much, I am now back to my 2 650's and used prs plus and a beautiful guide from this site and hope to get/find the fonts that the PRS-T1 uses.
I love the Amasis font, I found that one in a nook update, but in reviews I hear that there is a different between the Amasis in the Nook, and the Amasis in the PRS-T1. ( I can't compair it anymore)
Second I like the Verdana, that is a free font from Microsoft.
So I have this 2 fonts in my 650's
Allso found a plugin for Calibre that can get in batch, all embedded fonts in epub's out of it because a font direction in a epub can override the fonts in the reader.

So left is Frutigen Neue, it seems to be a real name.. need to find it,same for Palatino Nova, Really no 2 (fantasy name ?) and Univers next.
I think it's almost impossible to get the fonts out of a PRS-T1, I asked a couple of friends but they can't find them in their PRS-T1.
So can't compare them, but for me Amasis is the best, but the Georgia e-ink on page 1 of this threat is also good.

Gives me the nice problem... unable to try the other fonts of the PRS-T1 because I can't find them, to put them on my 650's and when Sony brings a update that helps the freezes of the PRS-T1 and I buy it again, there seems to be no way to put the Georgia e-ink font in it.

So... it's hunting for me to find the other Fonts... and then hope there is a way to re-insert the Georgia when the PRS-T1 is updated.
Most of my crashes are not related to any font change, but we found out that there are 2 firmwares, and that the second one (1.0.00.09270) doesn't have the problems, we asked Sony to release that version for the public, but Sony doesn't want to.
So best fonts for me are:
1.Amasis
2.Verdana
3.Georgia (that can't be used on the prs-t1 for now...,or you have to include it into every epub)

[JSWolf]

I've taken to liking Charis SIL. It's quite a nice serif font and looks quite nice on a Pearl screen. Fontin is still nice once I adjust the line height.