Hacks Changing the reader font without a hack [K3]

[NiLuJe]

@flandroid: Yeah, I have usbnet installed and ready, so at worst I can fix up/restart the Kindle manually. You shouldn't have any worse issue than the GUI being borken/unresponsive with this kind of thing, though .

@gca3020: It'll take a bit more than the Windows font viewer to know how the font is hinted, you'll have to open it with a font editor (I use Fontforge on Linux). Or with FreeType's utils if you're familiar with the different FT settings .

And even if they're not hinted, at worst they'll look a bit fuzzy (unhinted), or weird (badly hinted, than can cause broken outlines, varying weight/height across glyphs...). The only time I really had something unusable was when trying one of Vista's TTC font on my K2 a while ago, and even then, it was just garbled a bit .

So, TTC excluded, the Kindle will probably handle most of the PS/Type 1/Type 2/TTF/OTF fonts you'll throw at it .

And no, the default fonts are not user-accessible, but the full fonts hack back them up in an user-accessible directory.

[[Ahmed]]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

Well, OTF Type 1/2 fonts renamed as .ttf *seems* to work fine so far, and the Kindle uses the the hinting instructions, so that should help a lot for those PS fonts .

awesome. I've spent quite a lot of money on OTFs. Wasn't too happy with true TTFs, mainly because I don't have that many good ones :-)

[gca3020]

Thanks for the reply. Looks like I can install fontforge on Windows with cygwin, so I might play with that for a bit, since I already have cygwin installed.

Gives me something to play with while compiling code, I suppose.

I'm new to typography in general, so most of what you said went right over my head, but I'll play around in fontforge to see if I can learn anything. Is there a really easy way to tell if a font is hinted?

[NiLuJe]

@gca3020: Once you click on a glyph to edit it, if it's a Type 1/Type 2 font (cubic outlines), you'll see the hinting as colored blocks inside the outline (among other things). If it's a TTF font (quadratic outlines), the bytecode hinting is viewable via Hints > Edit instructions.

[anonymous]

How do I change the font of the dictionary pop-up using this trick?

[NiLuJe]

You can't. You'll have to use the full font hack for this. (It's Sans_Regular).

[NiLuJe]

A quick note, because I'm a bit stupid and hadn't tried that before...

When the hinting doesn't look very good for a font, instead of exporting it to TrueType, and autohint & autoinstr, you can also try exporting (or not, if it's already a PS font) it to OpenType CFF, clearing hints & AutoHint seems to give far more nicer results . [Read FontForge's docs, you may need to tweak a few settings in the preferences for autohinting to work correctly].

In short: Prefer OpenType CFF fonts over TrueType fonts when targetting a K3 And autohint ftw! .

[meem]

Still no change for me, I did all your instructions very well.
So I'll going to use the hack.
Thanks any way.

[jl1234]

Question: I have a problem reading chinese mobi on k3, I want to know if changing the font will solve the problem. and which font should i use to replace the default one?

[Wilburtess]

My Kindle 2 5-way moves only left and now my font it tiny and the margins are compressed! Is there a reasonable workaround to set the font larger and restore the wider margins? I would be perfectly happy to leave it there once it is reset. (Called Amazon already...only offer was a refurbished.) Thanks.

[NiLuJe]

@jl1234: no, use the full font hack or switch the locale (check the dev forum)

@Wilburtess: Wrong thread. This of for the k3.

[soymicmic]

Thanks a lot

Works fine with Ubuntu Fonts

[xzhang_usa]

NiluJe,

1. Does your instruction work dor kindle 3 wi-fi eReader?
2. in the fonts folder, do I need to same files name you instructed?
can I add more fonts other than those 3 fonts?

Thanks a lot,

xiaoyi

[xzhang_usa]

NiluJe,

1. Does your instruction work dor kindle 3 wi-fi eReader?
2. in the fonts folder, do I need to same files name you instructed?
can I add more fonts other than those 3 fonts?

Thanks a lot,

xiaoyi

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

Hello again! In this quick little post I'll explain how to change the font used in the reader to use a custom font, without having to use the proper full-fledged font hack.

Note: FW 3.x only.

It's not as complete/powerful as the full hack, you'll only be able to change the reader font, exactly the same way as the official font switch in the [Aa] menu.

First, make sure your Kindle is on the Home screen before plugging it to your computer.

You'll have to edit the reader config file, which is located, once your Kindle is plugged to your computer, in the system\com.amazon.ebook.booklet.reader folder. (Att, Windows users: depending on your Windows Explorer settings, this folder might be hidden. To workaround this without messing with Windows Explorer settings, just enter the folder name in the address bar). Once you're there, open the reader.pref file in your favorite UNIX-aware text editor. (Yes, it's the same file where you can tweak the horizontal margins)

In there, just before the

FONT_FAMILY=

line, add:

ALLOW_USER_FONT=true

and replace the FONT_FAMILY= line with:

FONT_FAMILY=alt

Once that's done, we'll have to put our custom fonts where the Kindle expects them...

In the root of your Kindle, create a folder named fonts. In this new folder, you'll have to put your custom fonts with very specific names, according to their style, kinda like with the Fonts hack.

Regular: alt-Regular.ttf
Bold: alt-Bold.ttf
Italic: alt-Italic.ttf
Bold Italic: alt-BoldItalic.ttf

And that's it! Eject your Kindle, and Restart it. (Or, if you can, just restart the framework).

You Kindle should now be using your custom font instead of the usual Serif/Serif Condensed/Sans Serif .

As always with this kind of tinkering, it won't survive if you try to change this specific setting (font choice) in the [Aa] menu. But every other setting (ie. font size) in the menu should be fine .

On a sidenote, I'm also pretty sure Amazon has user screensavers ready under their sleeves, but I'm not sure how to try to enable it... Someone without the SS hack could try putting screensavers in a screensavers folder and hoping for the best, maybe? ^^ But I'm pretty sure that it'll need some kind of trigger file or config tweaked somewhere in order to work for now before it's officially enabled...

Note that the Kindle software now uses TrueType bytecode hinting instructions, and hint at the strongest level possible. (In terms of FT/FC settings: hintstyle=hintfull, hinting=true & autohint=false).

OpenType CFF fonts work fine too, without converting them .

[Barty]

Originally Posted by xzhang_usa

NiluJe,

1. Does your instruction work dor kindle 3 wi-fi eReader?
2. in the fonts folder, do I need to same files name you instructed?
can I add more fonts other than those 3 fonts?

Thanks a lot,

xiaoyi

1. Yes. I have the k3 wifi only. It works

2. You do have to call it alt. It will not recognize anything else. And you can only have one set of fonts.

You can use otf fonts. Just rename it ttf. You don't need to use the same font for all the styles. You can use arial for regular, and times for bold if you want. Of course it will look weird, but that's just an example. Personally, I use souvenir medium for regular, and souvenir Demi for bold. This gives me nice dark text.