Aura HD Simple Fix for the Stupid Italic/Bold Bug

[Anak]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I've never seen any font where the font family name included bold, italic, bold italic variants though I have seen several that used thin, black, etc.

In most cases it is not a problem for reguar, italics, bold and bolditalic font family (sub) styles. As long as they are from the same 'series', e.g. black, caption, display, book, light, medium (and many more).

As long as the family name matches all four (sub) styles then

Originally Posted by DNSB

[…]With the font files correctly named, all I need to do is to copy the 4 files over to the fonts directory in the root of the Kobo's internal storage, power cycle the ereader and that font is ready to be used.

it is correct.

But you do need a font editor to combine fonts to make 'em look better on a ereader.
E.g. replace a 'normal' regular and italic for a medium (a little bolder) you need to rename the font names as the medium font usually contains the word 'medium' in the font name. The same for semibold (SmBd) fonts.

Originally Posted by DNSB

The font naming issue has been there since Kobo first introduced the ability to sideload fonts. I don't feel that having to specify the font file names is that big an issue. 3 of Kobo's internal fonts have issues with bold/italic and epubs but since I rarely use them, it's not a major issue for me. It is an issue (and a known one) with the Adobe Reader Mobile SDK from some digging I did a while back. I've never had any issues with add-on fonts since I first started using the correct file names.

The font issue is not a Adobe Mobile SDK (or Access) issue. Some - Kobo preloaded generic font families (embedded on the device - fonts work on the Access renderer and not on RMSDK. Other fonts work fine on Adobes RMSDK but not on the Access renderer. Kobos preinstalled fonts should work fine regardless which renderer is used.

The font bug is caused by inconsistent font (internal) naming/reference. See the attached picture.
To make a font family work correctly on a Kobo device. The font family name should be indentical in red boxes 1, 2 and 3.
The references to the sub style (here: italic) should be indentical in red box 2 and 3. If not, the font family will not work correctly. Box 2 and 3 could also named 'BerlingLTStd-It' instead of 'BerlingLTStd-Italics' but must match.
The font name of the saved font file should still end with -Italics (BerlingLTStd-Italics.otf/ttf; follow Kobos font naming convention).
Full name, menu name, FOND name are non-critical. These are only to make a font 'readable for humans'.

Some of the (embedded) fonts supplied with Kobos readers clearly have this error.
I only encountered this error or bug with sideloaded fonts when box 2 and 3 didn't match. When they match the font family works perfectly on both the Access and Adobe RMSDK renderer.