iPad iBooks, ePub, embedded fonts & encryption

[JSWolf]

Can someone please attach an ePub that works to show us more fonts in iBooks? Thanks.

[kjk]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Can someone please attach an ePub that works to show us more fonts in iBooks? Thanks.

I suck at making ePubs, but here is my attempt-please note that all credit goes to Michael Critz http://www.michaelcritz.com/2010/04/...r-ipad-iphone/ who found all these typefaces, and Liz Castro http://www.pigsgourdsandwikis.com/20...s-on-ipad.html, for bringing them to my attention-I just glommed them clumsily into an ePub format so people can check out all the cool typefaces on their iPads.

edit: ok, fixed some crap.

[JSWolf]

Thank you kjk. I'll give this a go when the iPad is available later on tonight.

[lizcastro]

So, okay, if it's not embedding, and Tahoma is not on your list, how is the iBook showing these extended characters. To my knowledge these extended characters show up differently using fonts other than Tahoma. If Tahoma is not on the list, how is it that I can see them? I'd really like to know.

Some fonts can be applied to text in an ebook in iBooks on the iPad. These are fonts like Cochin or Hoefler Text, or Palatino.

Some fonts are applied automatically by iBooks when you use a particular character. So if you can write a document in, say, Arabic and save it in an XHTML file and compress it in an ePub, iBooks will use the Geeza font to display it. It doesn't matter if you apply Palatino to it, or Bradley Hand, or whatever. Because those characters are from a given range of Unicode, they'll trigger the Geeza font in iBooks. (This system also applies to Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, and Thai, as well as Zapf Dingbats, and all of the (X)HTML entities like ñ, ç, and even ♥ (of which you can find a full table here.)

I imagine that's what's happening with your Sanskrit, though I'm not familiar with those particular characters. I'd be curious to see your ePub doc if you feel like sharing it.

There are a number of font-related posts on my site you might find useful:
Palatino bug in iBooks on iPad
Text Size in ePubs-- Points? Pixels? or Ems? Oh my...

More fonts for eBooks on iBooks on the iPad
Choosing Fonts for iBooks on iPad

hope that's helpful,
Liz

[lizcastro]

As far as embedding goes, if your ePub doesn't include the font file (and you can tell because it would be in the fonts folder inside the OPS or OEBPS folder), then you haven't embedded it and you don't have to worry about licensing.

If the font file is in that font folder, you definitely have to check the licensing information to see if you're allowed to distribute it. (There are some fonts that allow such distribution and many that do not.)

That said, iBooks currently does not support ANY font embedding at all, though the iPad itself does support only SVG (scalable vector graphics) font embedding, say, for web sites viewed with Safari.

best,
Liz

[nikkie]

The new B&N has a toggle setting for "use publisher's settings" or use your own. I'm not sure which B&N books have embedded fonts, so I can't tell you for sure if it is supporting them, but it's the best shot I've seen so far.

[kjk]

Originally Posted by lizcastro

There are a number of font-related posts on my site you might find useful:
Palatino bug in iBooks on iPad
Text Size in ePubs-- Points? Pixels? or Ems? Oh my...

More fonts for eBooks on iBooks on the iPad
Choosing Fonts for iBooks on iPad

hope that's helpful,
Liz

That Palatino bug is pretty bad-after reading your blog about it, I checked a book that was saved in Sigil that had that problem...and Sigil breaks up the ePub internally into multiple XML documents...and I think the <p class="palatino"> </p> thing has to be put in every XML document in the ePub. Hopefully they fix the issue soon.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by kjk

That Palatino bug is pretty bad-after reading your blog about it, I checked a book that was saved in Sigil that had that problem...and Sigil breaks up the ePub internally into multiple XML documents...and I think the <p class="palatino"> </p> thing has to be put in every XML document in the ePub. Hopefully they fix the issue soon.

That could be why my sample failed. I'll have to try putting it in every XML and see what happens. I will report my results here.

[danegeld]

>I think the <p class="palatino"> </p> thing has to be put in every XML document in the ePub.

I've successfully made two ePub files (so far) that display in iBooks using fonts available on the iPad and adapting bits from the Typefaces in iBooks 1.0 ePub file. The files don't display with the @font-face font unless the initial paragraph tag has class="palatino" included (see post above). I couldn't get it to work with a simple space, but it did work when I used a non-breaking space or something like a period that actually displays (though you can always make it white so it's not visible).

The bigger problem I'm having is constructing the ePub archive. I finally found that Springy makes it simpler not to compress the mimetype file within the archive, but I wish there were a utility specifically for making and working with ePub archives.

[kjk]

Originally Posted by danegeld

The bigger problem I'm having is constructing the ePub archive. I finally found that Springy makes it simpler not to compress the mimetype file within the archive, but I wish there were a utility specifically for making and working with ePub archives.

I'm not familiar with Springy-but I've used pdurrant's excellent little Applescript for re-zipping up ePubs.

[Sadhu]

Originally Posted by lizcastro

Some fonts can be applied to text in an ebook in iBooks on the iPad. These are fonts like Cochin or Hoefler Text, or Palatino.

Some fonts are applied automatically by iBooks when you use a particular character. So if you can write a document in, say, Arabic and save it in an XHTML file and compress it in an ePub, iBooks will use the Geeza font to display it. It doesn't matter if you apply Palatino to it, or Bradley Hand, or whatever. Because those characters are from a given range of Unicode, they'll trigger the Geeza font in iBooks. (This system also applies to Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, and Thai, as well as Zapf Dingbats, and all of the (X)HTML entities like ñ, ç, and even &hearts; (of which you can find a full table here.)

I imagine that's what's happening with your Sanskrit, though I'm not familiar with those particular characters. I'd be curious to see your ePub doc if you feel like sharing it.

There are a number of font-related posts on my site you might find useful:
Palatino bug in iBooks on iPad
Text Size in ePubs-- Points? Pixels? or Ems? Oh my...

More fonts for eBooks on iBooks on the iPad
Choosing Fonts for iBooks on iPad

hope that's helpful,
Liz

Yes, thank you Liz. As far as what is happening with the Sanskrit (transliteration - since we aren't using Sanskrit characters, merely the extended character markings for pronunciation of the Sanskrit).

As KJK noticed (sorry I didn't thank you earlier for pointing this out, KJK) the Tahoma, a sans serif font, was replaced by a serif font, perhaps Palatino. So the ePub conversion software did indeed substitute a font, but keep the unicode for the extended character set, thus keeping the Sanskrit transliteration (we aren't displaying the actual Sanskrit, just the pronunciation markings for the "transliteration," and those markings are NOT found on every font, just a few, Tahoma being one of the more common ones found on both Mac and PC. That was the main reason behind using it.

A problem remains with the spacing: lines are broken willy-nilly, and chapters which should have a hard page break in the original documents do not break, with the headings and text mixed together with the previous chapter. I will try manually editing thet ePub using Sigil.

[lizcastro]

I unzip and rezip with Terminal (on Mac). Heard that Zip on Windows works fine too.

[lizcastro]

The only way currently to have a page break in an ePub is by starting a new XHTML file. Anybody finds an alternative, and I want to hear about it!

Not sure what you mean about lines being broken willy-nilly... perhaps you have line breaks within paragraphs?

best,
Liz

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by lizcastro

The only way currently to have a page break in an ePub is by starting a new XHTML file. Anybody finds an alternative, and I want to hear about it!

In the CSS have the style you want a page break after include

page-break-after: always

or the style you want a page break before include

page-break-before: always

That should do it.

[danegeld]

>I'm not familiar with Springy-but I've used pdurrant's excellent little Applescript for re-zipping up ePubs.

Thanks. I'll check it out.

>I unzip and rezip with Terminal (on Mac). Heard that Zip on Windows works fine too.

I'm too lazy to use Terminal. I gave up the command line back the in the days of the Amiga. :-)

I found Springy a couple of months ago. Unlike most other Mac archive utilities, it will open an archive without extracting the contents and you can also extract individual files. I've had some success editing files directly within the ePub archive, but I've also had a few archives go corrupt after doing that.