FW 5.3.x - 5.7.x Fonts Hack

[NiLuJe]

@caerphoto: Did you touch the filenames of the fonts at all? (I'm assuming you re-populated the override menu after the fontconfig cache update?).

On the off chance that something wonky's happening, try with another set of fonts (although Crimson Text should work flawlessly - that's the family I'm mainly using on the PW2).

Make sure the data/time is set correctly on your device.

If all else fails, try the 'rebuild/clear fontconfig cache' button instead. It'll take forever, but will disregard wonky timestamps.

[caerphoto]

Filenames not touched – I copied them directly from ~/Library/Fonts

Tried deleting Crimson from the device and putting Vollkorn on there instead.

Date and time are correct.

Cleared font cache.

Still no joy

Is there a procedure I can follow to completely clear the device and start again?

[NiLuJe]

@caerphoto: I'm assuming you've waited for the cache update/rebuild process to finish (this can take a while, if it doesn't that might be an indication that something went wrong along the way), watching our for the message printed at the bottom of the screen?

I'm fairly certain it's something simple we're just not seeing, and resetting anything won't change a thing, but you're welcome to clear the linkfonts folder manually and reinstall the hack to see if it jogs things up. (In which case, try the latest snapshot, I added some feedback to the cache update process).

[iGold]

@NiLuJe: thank you for such useful package! It's the only way to read with my favourite font (PT Serif) also properly hinted (with BCI override).

Currently I'm still on 5.4.3.2 (@PW2) but plan to upgrade to 5.6.1 (because it's first official Russian firmware). Are you plan to support 5.6+? I've looked into update_*.bin (mount rootfs.img) and have found a version of libfreetype.so was upgraded from libfreetype.so.6.3.20 :

igold:~/tmp/kindle/fw/5.6.1/rootfs% LANG=C ll usr/lib/libfreetype.so*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     21 Nov  2 14:58 usr/lib/libfreetype.so -> libfreetype.so.6.11.2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     21 Nov  2 14:58 usr/lib/libfreetype.so.6 -> libfreetype.so.6.11.2
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 806968 Nov  2 14:55 usr/lib/libfreetype.so.6.11.2

So current release of this package will not correctly override FreeType.

[NiLuJe]

@iGold: Oops. Good catch, I'll fix it when I get back home, thanks .

[NiLuJe]

There, released 0.10.N, which *should* handle FW 5.6.1 properly .

[iGold]

@NiLuJe: it works, thank you!

I replaced Serif with my font (PT Serif) and enabled BCI hinter.

Now I have FW 5.6.1 with JB/bridge 1.14, KUAL 2.5 + MrPi, usbNetwork 0.18, python 0.11, linkfonts 0.10 + (Cowards)RescuePack & BackdoorLock.

All work as expected. RescuePack is original, not from snapshots. But cowards addon is from.

[NiLuJe]

@iGold: Terrific! Thanks for the confirmation .

[Stino]

At the moment I'm thinking about buying an Kindle Voyage or an Kindle Paperwhite 2.
I own an jailbreaked Paperwhite 1 but the newer displays with higher contrast(PW2) or higher resolution (KV) sounds interesting. But most important for me is to use my own favorite font.

Since I read that this easy trick with USE_ALT_FONTS is not longer working on PW2 and KV I'm wondering if this font hack here will be working on an new Kindle Voyage with Firmware 5.6.1 ?

I see on first page that Firmware 5.6.1 is supported with Fonts v0.10.N but never read something about KV or Voyage? Is only Paperwhite supported?

As far as I read there is no "closed" Jailbreak for 5.6.1 at the moment so I think about doing an "open" Jailbreak with soldering an USB to TTL serial interface (maybe an PL2303HX ?) to the RX,TX, GND pins on the board. But before I start that hacking adventure I really need to know if this font hack will work on an Voyage or not.

Not even mention the calibre solution with embedding an custom font to each ePub I want to read. I did this for years with my old PRS-T1 but I'm tiered to do this for each book and it also not works for books with DRM from amazon store.

[NiLuJe]

@Stino: FW 5.6.1 is (mostly) unified between all the devices running on the same HW platform (PW2, KT2, KV). The latest version has been (minimally) field-tested on a PW2 running 5.6.1, so, theoretically (I don't have the device, and can't remember if a KV owner has tested this more than cursorily), it *should* work on a KV .

The biggest hassle will be the JB. After that, even if you have trouble with the Fonts Hack, I should be able to figure them out without a KV on hand anyway .

[HannahChimes]

I want to see what you have in the third screenshot (from the main post).
How do I attain this?

[NiLuJe]

@HannahChimes: With a Kindle Touch ^^ (Or a PW1 running FW 5.3.x).

The dynamic Aa menu went poof with FW 5.4.

[HannahChimes]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

@HannahChimes: With a Kindle Touch ^^ (Or a PW1 running FW 5.3.x).

The dynamic Aa menu went poof with FW 5.4.

Awww... :( I'm assuming there's no way to downgrade without having to reinstall all my mods.

[eschwartz]

Anything that needed to be installed via a .bin file probably dumps stuff into the rootfs, in which case yes, you need to reinstall it -- because downgrading involves doing a system update with a full image provided by Amazon.

On the other hand, it is easy to chain install hacks using the new MobileRead Package Installer.
Also, any configuration contained in the /mnt/us/* folders, where linkss/python/usbnetwork/etc store all the binaries/libs/conf/etc will be retained, as will KUAL and extensions. So it shouldn't be all that much of a bother.

[Musashi]

Thank you for the good work! Working fine in my PW1 5.4.4.2

And the crimson font is great too!