RTF, EPUB & LRF

[astra]

Originally Posted by cerement

See attached image

A very good example indeed.

[cerement]

Originally Posted by gwynevans

The font in the images of the LRF pages is the stock LRF font, i.e. "Dutch801 Rm BT Roman"

Dutch801 was Bitstream's copy of Times New Roman, and there is a true italic version available, but whether Sony actually included it on the PRS readers is another story.

This was a similar problem with ebook software on Palms, there was a roman font, a bold font, and a large font, but no italic fonts available on the devices, so most software ended either force slanting the font or just ignoring italics altogether ...

[pepak]

Verified: If you properly define custom fonts, EPUB implementation on PRS-505 does render proper italics.

@font-face { font-family: "Times CE", serif; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal, small-caps; src: url(res:///Data/fonts/times.ttf); }
@font-face { font-family: "Times CE", serif; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal, small-caps; src: url(res:///Data/fonts/timesbd.ttf); }
@font-face { font-family: "Times CE", serif; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal, small-caps; src: url(res:///Data/fonts/timesi.ttf); }
@font-face { font-family: "Times CE", serif; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal, small-caps; src: url(res:///Data/fonts/timesbi.ttf); }

[igorsk]

Originally Posted by cerement

Dutch801 was Bitstream's copy of Times New Roman, and there is a true italic version available, but whether Sony actually included it on the PRS readers is another story.

The fonts on the Reader include only the regular versions, no italics or bolds. They're actually exactly the same files as used by eBook Library, you can check them out if you have it installed: in "\Program Files\Sony\Reader\Data\fonts".

[cerement]

Originally Posted by igorsk

The fonts on the Reader include only the regular versions, no italics or bolds. They're actually exactly the same files as used by eBook Library, you can check them out if you have it installed: in "\Program Files\Sony\Reader\Data\fonts".

I wonder if Sony subjects Japanese to as much bad typography as we have to put up with?

[igorsk]

AFAIR Librie had a bit more of font variation. And LRF format does include suport for stuff like ruby and emphasis lines. On the other hand, Japanese don't need to bother about italics or bold.

[cerement]

Originally Posted by igorsk

AFAIR Librie had a bit more of font variation. And LRF format does include suport for stuff like ruby and emphasis lines. On the other hand, Japanese don't need to bother about italics or bold.

Closest metaphor I can come up with would be Sony only providing hirigana and katakana fonts but no kanji fonts ... yes, I know missing bold and italic is not even close to being that extreme (especially when they can be embedded with ePub), but in this day and age, not providing at least one complete font family with decent Unicode coverage just seems silly (yes, Amazon, I'm looking at you also) ...

[igorsk]

I guess decent fonts cost money, and if they think they don't need to support non-western languges for now...

[kbear]

Actually, it is possible to use the PRSCustomizer to add the missing font styles (italic, bold, bolditalic) to the PRS 505 built-in fonts.