Embedding fonts - strange issue

Originally Posted by JSWolf

OK, I've renamed the two bold versions as the two regular versions and I've upped the bold versions to be even bolder. I think this should work. The new Charis SIL should have more weight then any of the default fonts Amazon includes.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/5f...pact2-Bold.rar

Anyone trying these fonts on a PW2, please let me know how it works. Thanks.

Thanks! This looks pretty good on my PW2. I will show a screen capture after while. I cannot connect via USB with my Mac, so I will have to use my PC laptop.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by aceflor

Oooohhh..

Can any one of you experts modify Trebuchet for me and make it a tad bolder, but not as bold as the bold one (gosh, my English is so fluid today ) or point me to a freeware that would allow me to do it myself ?

I would really appreciate that.

Some fonts don't lend themselves to auto-modifiying. Some fonts would have to be hand tweaked for each character in the font (except for the various space type characters). Also, not having a Kindle, I cannot tweak the line height to override the KF8 line-height bug. It would require a lot of back and forth with screen shots to see if the line height was properly adjusted.

Fontforge is the only free program I know of to do this. There is a Windows compile that craps out if you even breath. So that's worthless. You can try to run it under Cygwin. If that fails, you'd have to do so under Linux.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by jswinden

Thanks! This looks pretty good on my PW2. I will show a screen capture after while. I cannot connect via USB with my Mac, so I will have to use my PC laptop.

That's good news. I am looking forward to seeing a screen shot of this. Would it be possible to show a photo of the screen as a screen capture doesn't show anything better then my laptop or desktop monitor does and doesn't really show how it looks on a PW2.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

That's good news. I am looking forward to seeing a screen shot of this. Would it be possible to show a photo of the screen as a screen capture doesn't show anything better then my laptop or desktop monitor does and doesn't really show how it looks on a PW2.

Here is a photo and a screen capture. The font size is set to 3 of 8 and the line spacing is set to medium. It looks like the CharisSIL bolded is now just slightly darker than the standard Kindle Caecilia and just a bit lighter than LexiaDaMa bolded.

....

[aceflor]

Linux long gone here... sadly.


Thanks Jon, I 'll see what I can do with Fontforge. My first try was not brilliant, Fontforge does not seem to like Trebuchet as much as I do.


Anyone knows another font that would have this 1930's typical kind of typography ?

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Some fonts don't lend themselves to auto-modifiying. Some fonts would have to be hand tweaked for each character in the font (except for the various space type characters). Also, not having a Kindle, I cannot tweak the line height to override the KF8 line-height bug. It would require a lot of back and forth with screen shots to see if the line height was properly adjusted.

Fontforge is the only free program I know of to do this. There is a Windows compile that craps out if you even breath. So that's worthless. You can try to run it under Cygwin. If that fails, you'd have to do so under Linux.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by jswinden

Here is a photo and a screen capture. The font size is set to 3 of 8 and the line spacing is set to medium. It looks like the CharisSIL bolded is now just slightly darker than the standard Kindle Caecilia and just a bit lighter than LexiaDaMa bolded.

....

Thanks for that. The new Charis SIL Bold does look pretty good on a PW2. The problem (to me) with LexiaDaMa is that it look like Caecilia and that is a font I dislike. It's like reading a variable width version of Courier.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by aceflor

Anyone knows another font that would have this 1930's typical kind of typography ?

Trebuchet is not a 1930s style of font. Most 1930s style of font are best used to headers/titles. They don't work for a body font of a book.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by jswinden

Here is a photo and a screen capture. The font size is set to 3 of 8 and the line spacing is set to medium. It looks like the CharisSIL bolded is now just slightly darker than the standard Kindle Caecilia and just a bit lighter than LexiaDaMa bolded.

....

Oh, if you like, I can bump up the regular and italic versions a bit and leave the bold as is if that would make it any better to you.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Thanks for that. The new Charis SIL Bold does look pretty good on a PW2. The problem (to me) with LexiaDaMa is that it look like Caecilia and that is a font I dislike. It's like reading a variable width version of Courier.

I can understand that. Everyone has different tastes. I personally like Caecilia Condensed and currently I modify my books to convert all text to bold but don't embed or specify any fonts. Then on my PW2 I select Caecilia Condensed. Hopefully one day soon we will be able to put our own fonts on the PW2 so I don't have to modify my books. I guess I got used to Caecilia Condensed from all the years of reading on Kindles.

[aceflor]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Trebuchet is not a 1930s style of font. Most 1930s style of font are best used to headers/titles. They don't work for a body font of a book.

Trebuchet is inspired from the art deco purist lines. It is a new font, but reminiscent of the art deco typographies, adapted to be readable and is used a lot for web design. I don't know jack about modifying fonts, but I know quite a lot about the art deco mouvement (it's my job). Here more fyi, from the microsoft typography web pages :

The Trebuchet typeface family, like Verdana and Georgia, was created for use on the screen. Designed and engineered in 1996 by Microsoft’s Vincent Connare, it has a strong and unmistakable appearance. Borrowing elements from both the geometric and humanist classifications of sans serif type - Connare acknowledges the influence of designs as diverse as Gill Sans, Erbar, Frutiger, Akzidenz Grotesk and the US Highway signing system - Trebuchet infuses any page with energy and personality. Its letterforms, loosely based on sans serif typeface designs of the 1920s and 1930s, carry a large x-height and clean lines designed to promote legibility, even at small sizes.

Anyway,I am looking for a similar font but bolder to embed in my books.

[Barty]

for the pw2, I am using tweaked franklin gothic, bold and condensed. Not the most aesthetically pleasing, but readable.

sorry, photo is blurry

[slantybard]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Oh, if you like, I can bump up the regular and italic versions a bit and leave the bold as is if that would make it any better to you.

I'm sorry, I can't provide any pics of the latest mod of charis since we are stranded in an airport due to weather. This leaves me lots of time to do absolutely nothing but read my PW2 and waste time on the internet....

Anyways, your bold modded charis for the the PW looks really nice. I would say it is now my second favourite after my own modded caecilia. I did notice though that your modded charis takes quite alot of bytes - my original file went from 300 kb to 2.2 mb by embedding your charis. This might affect anyone who has a large library and only 2 gb to use on their PW.

Originally Posted by slantybard

I'm sorry, I can't provide any pics of the latest mod of charis since we are stranded in an airport due to weather. This leaves me lots of time to do absolutely nothing but read my PW2 and waste time on the internet....

Anyways, your bold modded charis for the the PW looks really nice. I would say it is now my second favourite after my own modded caecilia. I did notice though that your modded charis takes quite alot of bytes - my original file went from 300 kb to 2.2 mb by embedding your charis. This might affect anyone who has a large library and only 2 gb to use on their PW.

Embedding fonts does make for large book files. That is one reason I sure hope someone figures out how to put the fonts on a PW2 rather than having to embed them in every book. How did you modify Caecilia? Did you use the PMN Caecilia Heavy/Bold fonts? Just curious. I would like to have a font similar to Caecilia Condensed but where the normal text is as heavy as it is currently for bold text. I modify my books to bold all paragraph text so I get this effect.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by slantybard

I'm sorry, I can't provide any pics of the latest mod of charis since we are stranded in an airport due to weather. This leaves me lots of time to do absolutely nothing but read my PW2 and waste time on the internet....

Anyways, your bold modded charis for the the PW looks really nice. I would say it is now my second favourite after my own modded caecilia. I did notice though that your modded charis takes quite alot of bytes - my original file went from 300 kb to 2.2 mb by embedding your charis. This might affect anyone who has a large library and only 2 gb to use on their PW.

The reason the size has jumped so much is that you did not read/take my advice to subset font. Subsetting removes any fonts not used like say bold italics and reduces the size of the fonts used to just the characters used. Subsetting might be able to be done when doing the conversion/embedding and if not, it can be done via Polish boos. Most eBooks I subset that have my Charis SIL embedded end up like 500-800k. Most are under 1MB.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by jswinden

Embedding fonts does make for large book files. That is one reason I sure hope someone figures out how to put the fonts on a PW2 rather than having to embed them in every book. How did you modify Caecilia? Did you use the PMN Caecilia Heavy/Bold fonts? Just curious. I would like to have a font similar to Caecilia Condensed but where the normal text is as heavy as it is currently for bold text. I modify my books to bold all paragraph text so I get this effect.

Caecilia Condensed is not an actual font. It's Caecilia diddled by the Kindle software. From what I've read, there is only one version of Caecilia on the Kindle and the Kindle software diddles it to make the others.