Bengali Font doesn't load in interface, book titles come in as boxes

ibnulshah01 · 08-26-2023, 10:44 AM

Hi everyone! The books you can see in the photos are all in Bengali language, and they were downloaded from a 3rd party source. I can read the books perfectly with a sideloaded Bengali font, but the font doesn't show up in the interface and book titles in the library page.

https://imgur.com/a/CHfNxfk

I've found a thread with a similar problem here:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=313923

but I don't really understand the thread as I'm really new at this.

please help!

thanks in advance.

lensmann · 08-31-2023, 01:48 AM

Could you try the following and see if it works? Open a book (or Pocket article) with Bengali text and flip a couple of pages. Then exit the book and return to the book list. Do the titles display now?

For some languages, Kobo will only load the necessary glyphs from a sideloaded font if a book requires the characters to be displayed. It won't load them for book titles. But once the glyphs have been loaded, it will display the titles properly. I don't read Bengali myself, but I used to have this precise issue with a different script. It may be worth checking to see if that is the problem.

ibnulshah01 · 09-10-2023, 02:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lensmann

Could you try the following and see if it works? Open a book (or Pocket article) with Bengali text and flip a couple of pages. Then exit the book and return to the book list. Do the titles display now?

For some languages, Kobo will only load the necessary glyphs from a sideloaded font if a book requires the characters to be displayed. It won't load them for book titles. But once the glyphs have been loaded, it will display the titles properly. I don't read Bengali myself, but I used to have this precise issue with a different script. It may be worth checking to see if that is the problem.

Wow, yes, I have the exact same problem. It only displays titles properly after turning a few pages. Any idea how to solve this?

Aleron Ives · 09-10-2023, 04:14 PM

You can't. Bengali is not one of the languages supported in the UI, so the device doesn't load the font you need automatically. You have three options:

Continue to use lensmann's approach to force the device to load the needed glyphs.
Edit the metadata of every book to replace the glyphs with ones the device can display normally, i.e. transliterate all the book and author titles into English characters.
File a feature request on the Kobo website and hope the developers add Bengali as an officially supported UI language some day. Continue to use #1 or #2 until then.

ownedbycats · 09-15-2023, 05:31 PM

I don't have any advice, but fun fact: those little boxes are referred to as a .notdef glyph.

Uncle Robin · 09-15-2023, 10:29 PM

Just a note that it's not always Kobo's fault. Although it renders devanagari fine in most cases, in my copy of Gulzar's Footprints on Zero Line: Writings on the Partition the font was some weird proprietary thing that even Kobo's own website struggled with. Although to be fair, the jerky, fractured display was very apt for my Hindi reading skill level.

lensmann · 09-17-2023, 11:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

Just a note that it's not always Kobo's fault. Although it renders devanagari fine in most cases, in my copy of Gulzar's Footprints on Zero Line: Writings on the Partition the font was some weird proprietary thing that even Kobo's own website struggled with. Although to be fair, the jerky, fractured display was very apt for my Hindi reading skill level.

I seem to recall from a prior discussion that the renderer used for kepubs has issues with combining marks in Indic scripts if the Indic font is set to be a supplementary font. However, the issues seem to go away if you set the Indic font to be the main font. Does that help with the rendering of this book, or is the issue something different?

tantrik123 · 10-12-2024, 11:51 PM

I know a work around for this. Everything was working fine before 4.31.19086. after that they made some changes and the fonts from the interface are gone. I've downgraded my firmware to 4.31.19086 and everything is working as expected. anyone fixed this issue in newer firmware versions ? please let me know. Thanks

09-10-2023, 04:14 PM	#4
Aleron Ives Wizard Posts: 1,644 Karma: 16302664 Join Date: Sep 2022 Device: Kobo Libra 2	You can't. Bengali is not one of the languages supported in the UI, so the device doesn't load the font you need automatically. You have three options: Continue to use lensmann's approach to force the device to load the needed glyphs. Edit the metadata of every book to replace the glyphs with ones the device can display normally, i.e. transliterate all the book and author titles into English characters. File a feature request on the Kobo website and hope the developers add Bengali as an officially supported UI language some day. Continue to use #1 or #2 until then.

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08-26-2023, 10:44 AM	#1
ibnulshah01 Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Aug 2023 Device: Kobo Clara 2E	Bengali Font doesn't load in interface, book titles come in as boxes Hi everyone! The books you can see in the photos are all in Bengali language, and they were downloaded from a 3rd party source. I can read the books perfectly with a sideloaded Bengali font, but the font doesn't show up in the interface and book titles in the library page. https://imgur.com/a/CHfNxfk I've found a thread with a similar problem here: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=313923 but I don't really understand the thread as I'm really new at this. please help! thanks in advance.

08-31-2023, 01:48 AM	#2
lensmann Zealot Posts: 142 Karma: 821920 Join Date: Sep 2014 Device: Clara BW, Aura One, Aura HD, Boox Max 2, ThinkBook Plus Gen 2	Could you try the following and see if it works? Open a book (or Pocket article) with Bengali text and flip a couple of pages. Then exit the book and return to the book list. Do the titles display now? For some languages, Kobo will only load the necessary glyphs from a sideloaded font if a book requires the characters to be displayed. It won't load them for book titles. But once the glyphs have been loaded, it will display the titles properly. I don't read Bengali myself, but I used to have this precise issue with a different script. It may be worth checking to see if that is the problem.

09-15-2023, 05:31 PM	#5
ownedbycats Custom User Title Posts: 10,599 Karma: 74166147 Join Date: Oct 2018 Location: Canada Device: Kobo Libra H2O, formerly Aura HD	I don't have any advice, but fun fact: those little boxes are referred to as a .notdef glyph.

09-15-2023, 10:29 PM	#6
Uncle Robin Diligent dilettante Posts: 3,599 Karma: 50290822 Join Date: Sep 2019 Location: in my mind Device: Kobo Sage; Kobo Libra Colour	Just a note that it's not always Kobo's fault. Although it renders devanagari fine in most cases, in my copy of Gulzar's Footprints on Zero Line: Writings on the Partition the font was some weird proprietary thing that even Kobo's own website struggled with. Although to be fair, the jerky, fractured display was very apt for my Hindi reading skill level.

10-12-2024, 11:51 PM	#8
tantrik123 Junior Member Posts: 1 Karma: 10 Join Date: Oct 2024 Device: kobo libra h20	I know a work around for this. Everything was working fine before 4.31.19086. after that they made some changes and the fonts from the interface are gone. I've downgraded my firmware to 4.31.19086 and everything is working as expected. anyone fixed this issue in newer firmware versions ? please let me know. Thanks