PRS-600 PRS-600 doesn't display correct fonts in ePub files.

[MSJim]

jackie_w
This is the original test file copied from Word:

Times New Roman 12 pt.
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog’s back.

Georgia 12 pt.
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog’s back.

Arial 12 pt.
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog’s back.

============

I can’t do a screen shot of the reader, but it looks like this:

Times New Roman 12 pt.
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog’s back.

Georgia 12 pt.
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog’s back.

Arial 12 pt.
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog’s back.

I've attached my original RTF test file, and the ePub generated by Calibre.

The lower case f is a good indicator, but I like to look at the tops of the lower case serif fonts. Times New Roman serifs slant down to the left while Georgia serifs stick out straight. The lower case t is a plain cross in Georgia, but the top left side in Times New Roman looks like a triangle. Unfortunately, I need to have the letters fairly large to tell the difference.

jswinden;
Thanks for clarifying the double quote issue. Text in Post #3 shows the Georgia in double quotes.
I used Sigil to add in the missing body { font-family: "Georgia", serif; } statement – no change and then put double quotes around the first appearance of Georgia, ahead of the font location references.

@font-face {
font-family: “Georgia”;
panose-1: 2 4 5 2 5 4 5 2 3 3

I don’t know if it is appropriate to add double quotes there or not, but it didn’t make any difference. So far everything I’ve tried still leaves me with Times New Roman.

Thanks again for your help.

[dmapr]

MSJim,

from the screen shot you posted it looks like the extension TTF is still in upper case on your reader. Rename all font files to lower-case TTF or else change the CSS to have capital case TTF on the font file names.

In your particular case the body { font-family: "Georgia", serif; } plays no difference because all the text has been enclosed in tags overriding the font-family anyway.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by dmapr

MSJim,
...it looks like the extension TTF is still in upper case on your reader...

Yes, this definitely needs sorting out.

[jackie_w]

Also, did you load the RTF into Calibre to convert to EPUB or did you convert the RTF to Web-filtered HTML using MSWord, then load the HTML into Calibre.

I am trying out your RTF file and the conversion to EPUB displays all text as Georgia. I have modified the RTF to repeat your text as bolditalic as I find it easier to see font differences using italic.

Will post some screenshots soon.

[jackie_w]

OK here are the screenshots
Convert RTF to EPUB gives all text in Georgia

[jackie_w]

Convert HTML to EPUB gives the following. All text in default EPUB serif fonts (regular and bold).

So this is definitely not working. It's just a case of finding out why. I'll keep looking. I know how to make it work by editing the HTML directly but I'd rather find out which part of the MSWord HTML is causing the problem.

By the way, if you've renamed your font files to lowercase .ttf on your reader, the epub I sent you earlier should now work and so should the raw HTML/Extra CSS I sent you.

When creating HTML or eBooks, my motto is the simpler the better.

If you are converting a fiction book, say a novel, you really don't need a bunch of different styles and fonts. Just keep it simple. If possible, start out with plain HTML that has all the styles and formatting stripped out of it. Do not use a program like MS Word to create HTML or RTF. You will get so much hardcoded formatting that you can never sort through all of it. It will be a huge mess. If possible just use plain tags without classes. Especially for a novel, all you really need to do is assign the basic text formatting in the BODY tag and let the ePub converter do the rest.

• So I suggest you use a plain and simple source file. For example a basic HTML file without much formatting. The less CSS formatting the better.
• Add your @font-face statements in the heading section of the HTML file.
• Add a reference to the @font-face statements in the BODY tag.
• Use calibre to convert the HTML file into an ePub file.

When creating your source file I would stay away from programs that add their own copious amounts of formatting. I suspect Sigil does, and I know MS Word does. Find a simple HTML editor like Homesite+ that does not mess with your HTML.

[jackie_w]

Jim, Assuming you haven't lost the will to live ...

There are many ways you could proceed. It all depends on

• how much effort you want to put into preparing each ebook
• how much formatting you want to retain during the conversion
• how much HTML/CSS you know

A simple solution is to load the RTF file into Calibre and convert to EPUB with the Extra CSS. The downside is that RTF to EPUB can lose things like images, centre, right-alignment, hard line breaks (often used in poetry). Unless Calibre has recently fixed this.

If you convert RTF to Web-filtered HTML using Word then you need to examine the CSS inside the HTML file.

Your file produced this on my PC

<style>
<!--
 /* Font Definitions */
@font-face
	{font-family:Georgia;
	panose-1:2 4 5 2 5 4 5 2 3 3;}
 /* Style Definitions */
 p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
	{margin:0cm;
	margin-bottom:.0001pt;
	font-size:12.0pt;
	font-family:"Times New Roman";}

@page Section1
	{size:612.0pt 792.0pt;
	margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt;}
div.Section1
	{page:Section1;}
-->
</style>

The problem is the red part. I don't think the blue part is required at all.

The red part needs to either be removed or to match what you have in your Extra CSS body{...} statement. Otherwise the "Times New Roman" defined for p.MsoNormal will be used to override its parent body element in your Extra CSS (standard rules of CSS). Since your reader doesn't know where to find "Times New Roman" it uses its default serif font instead.

You could always use "Times New Roman" as your "MSJim" label on every line of Extra CSS rather than "Georgia". It might be confusing but it should also work as long as you are still pointing them at the Georgia ttf files

Stripping out everything between and including <style>...</style> in the HTML file will also resolve the problem. However all styling would then be lost. A bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut. I do often use this method myself but I usually add back a link to my own standard ebook CSS stylesheet between the <head>...</head> tags.

[MSJim]

Thanks guys. The font extensions were the problem, or at least the last of several that were preventing the display of Georgia fonts on my reader. Both jackie_w's file and mine are now displaying correctly.

I appreciate the guidance too. I can see I've got a lot of testing to find my path of least hassel for cleaning up the files I have already converted.

[FizzyWater]

A question for the gurus:

Is it necessary to save the font files in a directory on the device itself, or can they be saved in the SD or memory stick card, along with the books?

[dmapr]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Jim, Assuming you haven't lost the will to live ...
<snip>
The red part needs to either be removed or to match what you have in your Extra CSS body{...} statement. Otherwise the "Times New Roman" defined for p.MsoNormal will be used to override its parent body element in your Extra CSS (standard rules of CSS). Since your reader doesn't know where to find "Times New Roman" it uses its default serif font instead.

jackie_w,

in the epub file that MSJim attached a few posts above the paragraphs rendered in fonts other than Times New Roman font had the text inside them placed in a span and the associated span class was set to use the correct font in the calibre-generated stylesheet, so in this particular case the MsoNormal overrides body and then gets overridden itself.

Originally Posted by MSJim

Thanks guys. The font extensions were the problem, or at least the last of several that were preventing the display of Georgia fonts on my reader. Both jackie_w's file and mine are now displaying correctly.

I appreciate the guidance too. I can see I've got a lot of testing to find my path of least hassel for cleaning up the files I have already converted.

Glad to hear it's all working now!

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

A question for the gurus:

Is it necessary to save the font files in a directory on the device itself, or can they be saved in the SD or memory stick card, along with the books?

Not necessary, you just need to know what the URI is for a file saved to the memory stick or an SD card as seen by the reader. If you look at all the @font-face declarations discussed here they're pointing to a font file under /Data which refers to internal memory; you'd need to change /Data to whatever mount point for the card is.

[mikij]

I just tried with Verdana. Ok, it's a little bit messy (12 as a base font is a bit too big), but it works great. I tried to find the bits of the solution everywhere. A guy sent me a CSS, but I put the font into Data/fonts in root of my PRS-600. Here I found the right path and altogether, it's great!

P.S. Here I found that the directories and the font names are case sensitive.
Tx

[mikij]

I tried with Verdana and although it fixed all my troubles with some "Japanese" characters, I don't think Verdana is easy readable. On a PC, it is my favorite font. Tiomes New Roman is not that nice.
Any idea which fonts are easy to read?

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by mikij

I tried with Verdana and although it fixed all my troubles with some "Japanese" characters, I don't think Verdana is easy readable. On a PC, it is my favorite font. Tiomes New Roman is not that nice.
Any idea which fonts are easy to read?

If you prefer a serif font, Georgia and Charis SIL are nice.

[mikij]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

If you prefer a serif font, Georgia and Charis SIL are nice.

Thank. Although I prefer sans serif, I'll give them a try.