Summary of Modified Fonts

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Your version should be updated as besides fixing the italic variant I've also made the non-breaking space the same size as the space.

Jon, in my version as in the original Charis 7, the space and the non-breaking space are set to widths of 600. I modified the vertical spacing not the character widths.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Jon, in my version as in the original Charis 7, the space and the non-breaking space are set to widths of 600. I modified the vertical spacing not the character widths.

You need to modify the width of the spaces. That's what makes the spaces smaller. I copied the spaces from ChareInk6Sp and then used those to manually adjust the non-breaking space.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You need to modify the width of the spaces. That's what makes the spaces smaller. I copied the spaces from ChareInk6Sp and then used those to manually adjust the non-breaking space.

I did try reducing the space width to 500 but found that I personally I prefer the original 600 width space/non-breaking space. However to keep things more consistent, I've attached a version of Char7WSP here with the space and non-breaking space set to a 500 width.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I did try reducing the space width to 500 but found that I personally I prefer the original 600 width space/non-breaking space. However to keep things more consistent, I've attached a version of Char7WSP here with the space and non-breaking space set to a 500 width.

What I need to do is put the medium versions on my Libra 2 to see if they have enough weight. If not, I'll have to add weight. The idea on the weighted version is if you have a Reader that doesn't allow adding weight such as a Pocketbook.

Also, the added weight version looks better then the too light original on an LCD screen.

For those who don't like hyphens, the smaller space helps with having less gaps if they prefer fully justified.

[xyclonei]

There's a GitHub release from Nico Verbruggen tuning some popular free / open fonts for eInk readability.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by xyclonei

There's a GitHub release from Nico Verbruggen tuning some popular free / open fonts for eInk readability.

I compared his NV-Charter to ChareInk7SP. NV-Charter is not as good for KF8 on a Kindle because the line height is larger. Also, while they are very similar looking fonts since ChareInk7SP is based on Charter, ChareInk7SP is a little darker (has more weight). So it's best to use ChareInk7SP instead of NV-Charter. And it's most likely that ChareInk7SP has more glyphs. So better for an eBook.

However, the other fonts are most likely OK. I've not downloaded any of the others to have a look. Eventually I'll have a look at some of them.

[Martinoptic]

Originally Posted by xyclonei

There's a GitHub release from Nico Verbruggen tuning some popular free / open fonts for eInk readability.

Thanks for the link.

[Winston Payne]

For those that enjoy reading with old-school, distressed-style fonts, I've created modified versions of Igino Marini's IM FELL family of fonts using FontForge (renamed the "WP Fell" fonts). My primary aim was to enable proper text rendering for small capital letters in KOReader (without small cap glyphs in the font file, KOReader renders small capital letters in lowercase, which I found unpalatable). The small caps already existed in separate "SC" font files, but they were not part of the main files; I merged them in. This allows small cap rendering in any app/ereader that supports native small cap glyphs, including KOReader and Kindle. See the attached screenshot for an example (the top row is from the base IM FELL files, the bottom is from the WP Fell files).

Notes/changes:

• For the Italic files, I've created fake, scaled-down small capitals (similar to what Kobo/web browsers do), as there are no native small capital glyphs available for the italic styles. I figured it was better to keep the ornate italics and end up with glyphs with thinner strokes, rather than to just apply an oblique effect to the regular glyphs.
• A kerning fix was made to the Great Primer files (the lowercase g/comma pairing in the regular and italic original files had some overlap, which looked pretty bad).
• Small caps have proper kerning. For the regular font files, the kerning is lifted from the original SC files and should be what Igino Marini intended. For the Italic style, I've matched the kerning of the small capitals to that of the uppercase letters (so a word in small caps would have the same kerning the same word in uppercase).
• These fonts don't include Bold/Bold Italic files; the original IM FELL files didn't have them (bold fonts didn't exist back when John Fell created these many centuries ago, I believe). Kindle/KOReader/etc will apply a fake bold effect when using these fonts if the text calls for bold, which tends to look okay, but YMMV depending on the app you're using them in.
• Like the original IM FELL Files, these are released under the OFL. If you're looking for a modern revival/cleaner version of this type of font, I'd also recommend looking at the Elstob font (it's a modern revival of the Double Pica style that includes bold/bold italic files; it's also free and released under the OFL).
• Kobo's webkit engine "fakes" small caps, even if the font includes them, so there's no reason to download these over the original IM FELL fonts if you're using the stock Kobo reader (unless you want the kerning fix for the Great Primer style). I haven't tested these with the stock Pocketbook reader, Kobo's Adobe engine, or other software.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Winston Payne

For those that enjoy reading with old-school, distressed-style fonts, I've created modified versions of Igino Marini's IM FELL family of fonts using FontForge (renamed the "WP Fell" fonts). My primary aim was to enable proper text rendering for small capital letters in KOReader (without small cap glyphs in the font file, KOReader renders small capital letters in lowercase, which I found unpalatable). The small caps already existed in separate "SC" font files, but they were not part of the main files; I merged them in. This allows small cap rendering in any app/ereader that supports native small cap glyphs, including KOReader and Kindle. See the attached screenshot for an example (the top row is from the base IM FELL files, the bottom is from the WP Fell files).

Notes/changes:

• For the Italic files, I've created fake, scaled-down small capitals (similar to what Kobo/web browsers do), as there are no native small capital glyphs available for the italic styles. I figured it was better to keep the ornate italics and end up with glyphs with thinner strokes, rather than to just apply an oblique effect to the regular glyphs.
• A kerning fix was made to the Great Primer files (the lowercase g/comma pairing in the regular and italic original files had some overlap, which looked pretty bad).
• Small caps have proper kerning. For the regular font files, the kerning is lifted from the original SC files and should be what Igino Marini intended. For the Italic style, I've matched the kerning of the small capitals to that of the uppercase letters (so a word in small caps would have the same kerning the same word in uppercase).
• These fonts don't include Bold/Bold Italic files; the original IM FELL files didn't have them (bold fonts didn't exist back when John Fell created these many centuries ago, I believe). Kindle/KOReader/etc will apply a fake bold effect when using these fonts if the text calls for bold, which tends to look okay, but YMMV depending on the app you're using them in.
• Like the original IM FELL Files, these are released under the OFL. If you're looking for a modern revival/cleaner version of this type of font, I'd also recommend looking at the Elstob font (it's a modern revival of the Double Pica style that includes bold/bold italic files; it's also free and released under the OFL).
• Kobo's webkit engine "fakes" small caps, even if the font includes them, so there's no reason to download these over the original IM FELL fonts if you're using the stock Kobo reader (unless you want the kerning fix for the Great Primer style). I haven't tested these with the stock Pocketbook reader, Kobo's Adobe engine, or other software.

Without italics, this font is not useful at all. Can you find a similar font that has all four font families?

[Winston Payne]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Without italics, this font is not useful at all. Can you find a similar font that has all four font families?

Each of the fonts have Italic files; they just lack Bold and Bold Italic files because the fonts they were digitized from never had them (I agree that I would not run a font without native italics, in most cases, except for maybe some monospace fonts).

For that reason, they work best for books/plays/etc that don't use bold formatting (stuff from the time period where bold text didn't really exist, like the 1700s/early 1800s and earlier). The fake bold effect that ereaders apply to these fonts for bold text tends to be OK in my opinion, but the acceptability of the effect will vary based on the software your computer/ereader is using and your own taste.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Winston Payne

Each of the fonts have Italic files; they just lack Bold and Bold Italic files because the fonts they were digitized from never had them (I agree that I would not run a font without native italics, in most cases, except for maybe some monospace fonts).

For that reason, they work best for books/plays/etc that don't use bold formatting (stuff from the time period where bold text didn't really exist, like the 1700s/early 1800s and earlier). The fake bold effect that ereaders apply to these fonts for bold text tends to be OK in my opinion, but the acceptability of the effect will vary based on the software your computer/ereader is using and your own taste.

In that case, you can use a font editor to add weight to give the font a bold and bold italic variants.

[MrSilverstrike]

Originally Posted by xyclonei

There's a GitHub release from Nico Verbruggen tuning some popular free / open fonts for eInk readability.

Oh, nice. I see someone's already shared this here before I had a chance to. Thanks for doing so! I'm the author of that collection. If anyone has questions or concerns, I'd be happy to make corrections.

I'm actually currently working on a new release of the collection which includes, in particular, a new font called Readerly -- one I'm actually looking for some feedback on and might be of interest. It's supposed to be somewhat optically similar to Bookerly, actually, while remaining fully OFL-licensed.

I've written a blog post about it and for Kobo devices I've specifically created and used this script to create a Kobo-friendly font with old-style ligatures that you can download here.

I'd encourage anyone interested to give it a try and let me know if you encounter any issues!

I also wanted to say thanks to JSWolf for creating ChareInk. I discovered it here a long time ago and really enjoyed reading with it for many years before diving into the font tweaking rabbit hole myself, which has proven to be very fun and technically interesting. So, thank you!

[kacir]

Originally Posted by MrSilverstrike

I'm actually currently working on a new release

I see that you already have pre-release ready for download. Thank you.

Is there a difference between kobo-*.zip and extra-*.zip packages, besides different font name prefix?

I have tried a lot of fonts in the past, and I see some old friends in your collection.

I personally have been using Roboto a lot in the past few years. It was commissioned by Google for reading on small screens [of Android devices]. Fonts.google.com has been fantastic since they introduced it, I do not have to search for fonts on questionable sites anymore.

[MrSilverstrike]

Originally Posted by kacir

Is there a difference between kobo-*.zip and extra-*.zip packages, besides different font name prefix?

Yes, there are differences.

The Kobo prefixed packages have all of the fonts patched by a script that applies a variety of fixes that improve font rendering on Kobo devices running the stock system software. Since those changes affect certain kerning tables, I don't recommend the Kobo packages for any other use (e.g. on Kindle or on your computer) since I can't guarantee they'll work exactly as intended. But on Kobo devices, they tend to look better.

More details and a full technical breakdown can be found in the README

[xyclonei]

Originally Posted by MrSilverstrike

Oh, nice. I see someone's already shared this here before I had a chance to. Thanks for doing so! I'm the author of that collection. If anyone has questions or concerns, I'd be happy to make corrections.

I'm actually currently working on a new release of the collection which includes, in particular, a new font called Readerly -- one I'm actually looking for some feedback on and might be of interest. It's supposed to be somewhat optically similar to Bookerly, actually, while remaining fully OFL-licensed.

I've written a blog post about it and for Kobo devices I've specifically created and used this script to create a Kobo-friendly font with old-style ligatures that you can download here.

I'd encourage anyone interested to give it a try and let me know if you encounter any issues!

I also wanted to say thanks to JSWolf for creating ChareInk. I discovered it here a long time ago and really enjoyed reading with it for many years before diving into the font tweaking rabbit hole myself, which has proven to be very fun and technically interesting. So, thank you!

Thank you for the collection and the kobo-font-fix script!

A quick test of the script shows it works on Linux and not Windows due to which being used (Windows uses where instead).

Also, would you be open to adding otf2ttf to the run pipeline so OTFs can be converted as well?