Help: missing embedded fonts after ePub3 transfer to Kindle

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by LostOnTheLine

I mean it's been awhile, but I studied European Fae lore once upon a time but the Sidhe were little people.

No. Not in ANY old Irish or Welsh MSS. The little people idea is like 400 or 600 years later, or more and in English via England from the Continent, maybe as late as 16th C.

Originally Posted by LostOnTheLine

For the use case I was referencing Audio Books wouldn't be a problem because you'd just have a different reader for the different Narrator/Font.

That's audio drama, not an audio book. The production costs are like x100 more!
However some narrators are pretty good at voicing the characters, as has been mentioned.

Edit:

So this story is one that is one of the "Changed in the name of Christianity" stories that we don't even know what the original story was. The Catholic church sought out & destroyed a lot of Fae Lore & replaced a lot with Christian-ized versions of them.
Interesting off-topic comment: the pointed ears of Fae creatures were originally "leaf-shaped" & it is debated, but more accepted than not, that the leaf-shaped attribute was added by the Catholic church because it was a symbol of deformity that was associated with cursed, demonic, & evil beings.

I don't know what tangent you are on, but mostly in English and entirely in Welsh and Irish it's not true.
The old Irish stories and Norse stuff (via Iceland about 400 to 600 years later) have no mention of pointy ears.
Also best scholarship suggests the Irish monks writing down oral tradition hardly changed or left out anything, they did add things. They changed Tuath Dé (tribe of God) to Tuatha de Danu (Tribe of goddess Danu), but that's because in Irish the Hebrews were the Tribe of God. Danu wasn't an Irish Celtic goddess at all like the ones of Erne, Boyne, Bann, Shannon etc, but of the Danube (Severn & Avon Celtic goddesses got Romanised). Before the Romans destroyed most of it there was a Pan European Celtic culture. The Helvetii fled Slavs and about 70% killed en route to Switzerland by Romans. The oldest Celtic writing uses a mix of Greek, Etruscan and Roman letters and about 700 BC found in Switzerland. One of Rome's early famous playwrights was an Italian Celt.
You can see huge bits of bronze age oral tradition in the oldest Irish MSS.
The Book of Invasions certainly has Christian elements added.
I don't see a huge Christian revisionism in Thomas the Rhymer or the Nordic Sagas from 13th C. via Iceland.

Fonts
I've already agreed that this particular ebook needs the fonts but having encountered this before I know the author could have done it differently. It's either ignorance or egotism.
Fonts may not be small, though you can subset.
Also such a thing mostly only works in Roman-Latin fonts. It's not going to work in any Asian language and possibly not in Farsi, Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and Cyrillic based languages, though I'm not sure.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Most fonts used in eBooks aren't needed. They are just there to be the same font as used in the pBook edition.

We already established this is a rare exception.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Quoth

We already established this is a rare exception.

IF you "establish that," my friend, youare, in effect, saying it can never be a regular audiobook.

IS that what we're saying? And that it can never be read upon something like Kindle Cloud Reader (no fonts)?



Hitch

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Hitch

IF you "establish that," my friend, youare, in effect, saying it can never be a regular audiobook.

IS that what we're saying? And that it can never be read upon something like Kindle Cloud Reader (no fonts)?



Hitch

Can only be read on epub, maybe on your own azw3, not sure, but won't publish on Amazon (92% of English eBooks) with all those body fonts.

Really if you want to read all kinds of everything not publishable on Amazon you either need a Kobo for eink, or a decent Android ePub app (some of those are on iPhone too), not a Kindle or Kindle App.

I mean if it's really published like this on paper and somehow an epub3 has been obtained and you (obtainer of mysterious book) want to leave it as the Author intended, then you need maybe an epub3 App, or PC viewer.

Been there, so not interested. I also won't read stuff without punctuation or in any other fashion experimental. I even gave up on James Joyce 30 years ago, though still have them here. He self published till the Literati decided he was great.
There was a poll on an Irish Media site on Joyce and few that attempted actually finished Joyce's Ulysses. The original version is OK.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Hitch

IF you "establish that," my friend, youare, in effect, saying it can never be a regular audiobook.

IS that what we're saying? And that it can never be read upon something like Kindle Cloud Reader (no fonts)?



Hitch

And can't be translated to languages the majority in the world use as almost all of those don't have even have as many as 4 or 5 really different fonts never mind one per character.

[LostOnTheLine]

Originally Posted by Quoth

And can't be translated to languages the majority in the world use as almost all of those don't have even have as many as 4 or 5 really different fonts never mind one per character.

Not one per character, one per NARRATOR. As I stated there are at most 8 different narrators, usually not more than 4 in a single book. The author writing a story writes it for readers in their own language. As I said earlier any translation is a form of adaptation. Just like you know the movie or TV series or stage play isn't going to be exactly 100% faithful to the original, you accept those changes because it's adapting to another media. Just like when a book is translated you have some of the same. If the text says "It's raining cats & dogs" in English the translator has to choose to either give a literal translation which won't make sense in most other languages or adapt it by its intent, like in Welsh a similar phrase translates literally as "it's raining old women & sticks" which in English doesn't make sense because it's an idiom of Welsh like Cats & Dogs falling from the sky is an idiom of English.


[QUOTE=Quoth;4338226]
Really if you want to read all kinds of everything not publishable on Amazon you either need a Kobo for eink, or a decent Android ePub app (some of those are on iPhone too), not a Kindle or Kindle App.
[/QUOTE
But you don't... Kindle supports embedded fonts... That's what this whole thread is about... As time goes on the experience gets better & can do more things. Before you accepted it as the tradeoff for the convenience, but once upon a time it was just text with no formatting. Then it got better & better as time goes on. Supporting custom fonts is just a step in that process.

Originally Posted by Quoth

Been there, so not interested. I also won't read stuff without punctuation or in any other fashion experimental.

You don't have to be. Choose to read by whatever criteria is import to you, but don't assume others must use the same.
I mean that's not some fringe "experimental" thing, authors have been choosing the font they wanted since before Computers existed. I mean there were less choices but at times I'm sure a author had custom letter types made for their books. The benefit of an eReader is that if you don't like the author's choice you, as a reader can choose to override it. But doing so you are choosing to disregard the author's choice & in doing so you might loose nuances.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Hitch

IF you "establish that," my friend, youare, in effect, saying it can never be a regular audiobook.

IS that what we're saying? And that it can never be read upon something like Kindle Cloud Reader (no fonts)?



Hitch

One way this book can be read as an audiobook is if the reader is good at doing voices.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Jon, dear, this may surprise you, but some of the participants here may have heard you mention this a time or two. Let the other children have time to shine, sweetie.

Hitch

It's been said and doesn't need saying again.

[JSWolf]

@LostOnTheLine try using the Scramble Ebook plugin with calibre and post a copy here. Someone can have a look and see what the best way to convert to to KF8 is and let you know.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by LostOnTheLine

Not one per character, one per NARRATOR. As I stated there are at most 8 different narrators, usually not more than 4 in a single book.

Oh, well, only 8 or so. Hell, we're saved.

The author writing a story writes it for readers in their own language. As I said earlier any translation is a form of adaptation. Just like you know the movie or TV series or stage play isn't going to be exactly 100% faithful to the original, you accept those changes because it's adapting to another media. Just like when a book is translated you have some of the same. If the text says "It's raining cats & dogs" in English the translator has to choose to either give a literal translation which won't make sense in most other languages or adapt it by its intent, like in Welsh a similar phrase translates literally as "it's raining old women & sticks" which in English doesn't make sense because it's an idiom of Welsh like Cats & Dogs falling from the sky is an idiom of English.

Well, this appears to be veering into whether translation supports or needs or requires something other than that which is needed or supported or required for original work...meh.

Originally Posted by Quoth

Really if you want to read all kinds of everything not publishable on Amazon you either need a Kobo for eink, or a decent Android ePub app (some of those are on iPhone too), not a Kindle or Kindle App.

But you don't... Kindle supports embedded fonts... That's what this whole thread is about... As time goes on the experience gets better & can do more things. Before you accepted it as the tradeoff for the convenience, but once upon a time it was just text with no formatting. Then it got better & better as time goes on. Supporting custom fonts is just a step in that process.

Well, "supports" is one of those vague, kinda-nice-to-hear words that doesn't really mean anything. "Supports" implies a level of maintenance, a reliability to the idea, that doesn't really exist. You can't ask KDP what fonts are "supported." For that matter, they can't even give you a comprehensive list that says which fonts are available on what devices.


And...maybe it wasn't in this thread, but yes, it was quite commonplace--and still can be--for KDP's PW (Publishing Workflow) to yank ALL, repeat, ALL the fonts (embedded) right out of a MOBI/ePUB, etc. I can't quite get behind the use of the word "support" in that instance. Just sayin'.

You don't have to be. Choose to read by whatever criteria is import to you, but don't assume others must use the same.
I mean that's not some fringe "experimental" thing, authors have been choosing the font they wanted since before Computers existed.

MEH, maybe the Ben Franklins of the world printing their own stuff but the truth is, most authors don't know Times New Roman from Gill Sans, nor why they should and don't care. They ONLY seem to care about the font issue if/when it's something like this. And believe me, this is a conversation, about what fonts, for what layouts, etc. I've had a LOT. I won't even regale some of you with the requests I've had. I told my crew that if a book escapes from my shop with Comic Sans therein, they can commit me. (That's what this town needs; an uber-friendly drop-off committal spot...)

mean there were less choices but at times I'm sure a author had custom letter types made for their books. The benefit of an eReader is that if you don't like the author's choice you, as a reader can choose to override it. But doing so you are choosing to disregard the author's choice & in doing so you might loose nuances.

Well...my concern is or would be, any book that needed that sort of verbiage infrastructure "support." My thinking is, the book--the BOOK--the writing by the author--not fripperies--should tell me what I need to know, about names, characters, who said what, the beats...to me, as a bookmaker, I would have technological and typographical concerns (especially in the eBook realm) around mixing that many main narrative fonts into the stew and as a reader, I would...well, it wouldn't be my cuppa.

Fonts-wise, for ebooks, as I'm sure you all know, it's not that simple to magically come up with (say) 8 identically-sized fonts so that the line-heights aren't all screwed up. And let's not talk about the differences in how the myriad different renderers, etc. all render those fonts, either--how an 80% something on an iPad (K4iOS) might look, compared to that same coding for a Fire...night and day. Oh and xheights, yheights...descenders, ascenders...it's mot that easy to find 8 disparate fonts that are very close in size. (Goahead, ask me..."Hitch, how do you know that?")

Then we'll have the joy of the line-heights being butchered and...oy.

Anybody can do, whatever they want, in their own books. That's their prerogative. I would try to dissuade a client that wanted it with a book with us, for the mentioned reasons.

Hitch

[Quoth]

Even 8 narrator fonts will pretty much only work in latin-roman alphabet. It's unlikely to pass Amazon KDP. Amazon embedded font support is not unlimited. They won't say AFAIK what the limit actually is.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Even 8 narrator fonts will pretty much only work in latin-roman alphabet. It's unlikely to pass Amazon KDP. Amazon embedded font support is not unlimited. They won't say AFAIK what the limit actually is.

oh, agreed. I once had a book with 4-5 fonts and it simply ran out of para instances that could "support" Arial of all things.

We had to redo the entire book. For whatever reason, it could only support so many calls to Arial. We tested it front- and backward and that was a hard number. Weird.

Hitch

[LostOnTheLine]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Well, this appears to be veering into whether translation supports or needs or requires something other than that which is needed or supported or required for original work...meh.

No my point was that when you translate something you are always going to be things that have to be adapted to work. The idea that "it's bad to use fonts because you can't translate a font to Chinese" is a ridiculous argument. I have no interest in commenting further about that because arguing that means you are arguing just for the sake of trolling...

Originally Posted by Hitch

Well, "supports" is one of those vague, kinda-nice-to-hear words that doesn't really mean anything. "Supports" implies a level of maintenance, a reliability to the idea, that doesn't really exist. You can't ask KDP what fonts are "supported." For that matter, they can't even give you a comprehensive list that says which fonts are available on what devices.

"Supports", in this context, means simply that it has the ability to use. With the rest of my comment I made it clear that I consider it a developing thing, so as it works better now than it used to, I expect it'll work better in the future than it does now.

Originally Posted by Hitch

MEH, maybe the Ben Franklins of the world printing their own stuff but the truth is, most authors don't know Times New Roman from Gill Sans, nor why they should and don't care. They ONLY seem to care about the font issue if/when it's something like this. And believe me, this is a conversation, about what fonts, for what layouts, etc. I've had a LOT. I won't even regale some of you with the requests I've had. I told my crew that if a book escapes from my shop with Comic Sans therein, they can commit me. (That's what this town needs; an uber-friendly drop-off committal spot...)

Most authors don't care. They don't need to. & no, this isn't a conversation about what fonts for what layouts, it's a discussion about "How to get embedded fonts to work on a Kindle." You're opinions on IF they should be used or not are not productive to this thread & are little more than trolling.

Originally Posted by Hitch

Well...my concern is or would be, any book that needed that sort of verbiage infrastructure "support." My thinking is, the book--the BOOK--the writing by the author--not fripperies--should tell me what I need to know, about names, characters, who said what, the beats...to me, as a bookmaker, I would have technological and typographical concerns (especially in the eBook realm) around mixing that many main narrative fonts into the stew and as a reader, I would...well, it wouldn't be my cuppa.

See, you are making it clear you didn't read what I wrote because I have said OVER & OVER that that is in no way what I'm talking about. It's not changing the font every time someone talks, it is almost entirely the same font for a whole chapter. I'm done repeating myself, it's a change of author. It's like a family is telling the story of their adventures. Sometimes dad is telling the story, sometimes the daughter. You can do this without fonts, but you severely loose nuances. With the fonts it's like you see the other font & the voice in your head changes. As this is written like personal accounts any over-narration takes you out of the story. You could say "Jessica takes the pen & takes over writing the story" but it's much more fluid to have the font change than a "Dad is that what you think happened? It wasn't like that at all, here let me tell this part" as that makes it a conversation between them not them telling you their story. It's rare that that's happening, like maybe 3 times in 20+ books.

[Turtle91]

Well… hold on a second.

Implying that Hitch is a troll is … just wrong. It’s undeserved and inaccurate. She is on here all the time helping people. It’s normal for people to misunderstand a point, or just miss it for that matter - especially as threads get longer and longer. She has tons of great points and lots of actual experience navigating these issues people bring up.

It serves everyone well to respectfully listen to others - even if they occasionally misunderstand a point.

Cheers!

[slm]

I don't know what book the OP was referring to, but a book that absolutely needed multiple fonts is "The Interior Life" by Dorothy Heydt (writing as Katherine Blake). The switch back-and-forth between "exterior" worlds and "interior" one needs a very strong visual indicator to work. As the author said (in 2016):

The Interior Life uses three different fonts, to represent the three "worlds" in which it takes place. The original Baen publication used fonts that probably looked fine to the typesetter, but were indistinguishable to the average reader. The online editions now display three fonts that are easier to tell apart. Which version you download will depend on whether your e-reader is a Kindle or not.

(https://www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/)