Touch Read Chinese in Kobo Touch

[FJC@YYZ]

Steps I took to enable Kobo Touch (firmware 1.9.10) to display Chinese. About a 10 minutes task

1) Collect 2 font files "simsun.ttf" (Windows default font for Simplified Chinese) and "mingliu.ttf" (traditional Chinese). I also include "fangsong_gb2312.ttf" file for older version Chinese ebook. Do not use the *.ttc files in your PC's Windows font folder. The *.ttf files can be easily downloaded from internet.

2) Connect KOBO to your PC, and tap "connect" on the KOBO screen. Your PC will recognise the KOBO as any USB drive. Use Windows explorer to navigate to the KOBO drive directory.

3) Create a new folder "fonts" in the directory, has to spell exactly fonts without the quotation marks.

4) Copy the *.ttf font files mentioned in (1) to the folder. In my case, the files are 10, 6 and 4 MB each.

5) Eject KOBO from PC and go to any ebook, tap in the middle to call up the font icon (lower right), tap on it and you will see the 3 added fonts to the 7 factory installed fonts that came with KOBO Touch.

6) Now your KOBO is a Chinese reader which can read Chinese ebook in pdf and epub formats (I checked only 2). You can also launch the KOBO browser (settings>extra>launch browser to sites such as "www.sina.com.cn" (for simplified Chinese) or "www.mingpao.com" for (traditional) to check whether the contents are displayed properly. My Gmail account also displayed emails with Chinese characters.

I have not been able to figure out writing Chinese with the keyboard in the Touch yet?

Hope the steps will help anyone who wants to include Chinese ebook or email/web surfing in their KOBO.

[IxiaAurea]

Awesome! Thanks for the tutorial

[quebeckerin]

I'm trying to help a friend set up her Kobo Touch to read Chinese. She followed the instructions above and it seemed to work, but a few characters do not display. Every four or five characters, there's a blank space, where a character should be. Any suggestions?

[mnjkl]

1 The font you are using does not support all characters in the books you are reading.
If you have windows 7, try to use msyh.ttf.

2 The font style Italic or Bold is not supported by "simsun.ttf". The characters using these style can not be displayed.
This can be resolved by some hacked font.

[quebeckerin]

Thanks. I'll ask my friend to try it.

[xuyn2003]

Originally Posted by mnjkl

1 The font you are using does not support all characters in the books you are reading.
If you have windows 7, try to use msyh.ttf.

2 The font style Italic or Bold is not supported by "simsun.ttf". The characters using these style can not be displayed.
This can be resolved by some hacked font.

Which firmware version? If 2.x, for chinese, you'd better use the ttf which specified the punctuations' width， here's a 宋体 for you.
http://dl.vmall.com/c0fd5cq6f9

[Diane S]

FJC@YYZ, thank you very much for your most useful posting!! I finally got my Kobo to read Chinese too. I feel like a new door just opened! I am so grateful and excited. This is the first time I've ever signed up to any forum online, and I did it to thank you. However, this also opened a new horizon for me.

Best wishes to you.

Diane

[tshering]

Welcome Diane S,

If you are interested in using a Chinese-English dictionary on your Touch, have a look at this post.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by xuyn2003

Which firmware version? If 2.x, for chinese, you'd better use the ttf which specified the punctuations' width， here's a 宋体 for you.
http://dl.vmall.com/c0fd5cq6f9

Just thought I would mention that the font you link to is not usable on a Kobo device unless you go in and edit the font name to something other than Malabar as that is an existing built-in font.

Regards,
David

[tshering]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Just thought I would mention that the font you link to is not usable on a Kobo device unless you go in and edit the font name to something other than Malabar as that is an existing built-in font.

Regards,
David

This does not concern all Kobo devices. The Malabar font is not built-in in the Touch.

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by tshering

This does not concern all Kobo devices. The Malabar font is not built-in in the Touch.

That depends on which firmware your Touch IS using....

[tshering]

Originally Posted by PeterT

That depends on which firmware your Touch IS using....

Right, I should have said: is not built-in in each and every Touch.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by PeterT

That depends on which firmware your Touch IS using....

Just checked and the 2.40 firmware for the old Touch does not have Malabar as a built-in font. I seemed to remember using it on my old Touch but likely one that I had tried as a add-on font.

Alternatively, it may have been one of the fonts that I tried using a fake firmware upgrade to install and ended up after a couple of successes in having to do a home button/power button factory reset. Ah.... good times!

Regards,
David

[fxp33]

Hi,

for Chinese and other languages using non latin scripts, I use this http://www.wazu.jp/index.html list of unicode font galery.

For example I found a very nice Bopomofo font, which is quite helpful on my Kobo when I don't know the pronunciation and the tone of a Chinese character: HanWangMingMediumChuIn (wp010-05.ttf) from http://www.wazu.jp/gallery/Fonts_Chi...aditional.html. Unfortunately the pronunciation is not present for all the characters.

François

[Norton]

It Even works in my new Aura HD!!

Thanks a lot!!