Collection of modified/optimized serif fonts for long reading

[erketre]

(Long) Read Fonts

My personal favorites, best for novels & history. Modified by me using Fontlab (Trial). Tested on Kobo Clara and Kindle PW4 (and PC).

Features

- Most recent versions of the original fonts;
- Added "Read" prefix to the original font family names;
- Added basic Greek and Cyrillic letters (when necessary);
- Normalized line height (about 125% em size of ascent/descent);
- Fixed ligatures, kerning etc. (when possible and necessary);
- Optimized optical size and weight (when variable font is available);
- Added a bit of thickness only if the original font looks too thin ("Thick" suffix).

Fonts included

- Crimson Pro (Free, 860 chars)
- Literata (Google, 1163 chars)
- Newsreader (Production Type, Free, 771 chars)
- Source Serif 4 (Adobe, Free, 924 chars)
- STIX (Free, 1297 chars)
- Linux Libertine (Free, 2697 chars) +thicken version
- Libertinus (Libertine fork, 2343 chars) +thicken version
- Cochineal (Crimson fork, 1285 chars) +thicken version
- Castoro (Free, 701 chars)
- Spectral (Production Type, Free, 877 chars)

Folder

https://mega.nz/folder/AThCUQID#CbU6ba_SJDGswjeH9T5atA

Feedback

Please leave a comment if you installed any of these fonts

[DNSB]

Please try to avoid duplicate posts. You might also consider that most of the fonts you posted are copyrighted and not freely redistributable. Not to mention that many font licrenses include a nasty line such as "You may not make changes to the font software file itself." as part of the license.

[erketre]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Please try to avoid duplicate posts.

My mistake, but I couldn't delete the other post.

Originally Posted by DNSB

You might also consider that most of the fonts you posted are copyrighted and not freely redistributable. Not to mention that many font licrenses include a nasty line such as "You may not make changes to the font software file itself." as part of the license.

That's true, some fonts (beside Source Serif) have this line. So probably I should delete these

[JSWolf]

Also, on the Kindle, you do need hinting or at smaller sizes, the fonts do not look good.

Also, while you cannot delete the post, you can edit it and remove the link.

[erketre]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Also, on the Kindle, you do need hinting or at smaller sizes, the fonts do not look good.

On every Kindle, or just on a Kindle with low (800x600) resolution?

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Also, while you cannot delete the post, you can edit it and remove the link.

OK, done

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by erketre

On every Kindle, or just on a Kindle with low (800x600) resolution?

In some version of the firmware,Amazon removed the hinting from Bookerly and someone posted showing that at some smallish size that Bookerly was rather uneven.

It's to do with the font renderer used on the Kindle. This would be an issue with the Kindle Basic for sure. I don't know about the older low-res Kindles I'm guessing yes.

[erketre]

I have removed proprietary fonts, and applied autohint (PS only).
Main post has been edited accordingly.

[erketre]

Added another great font: Linux Libertine. Check it out!

[JSWolf]

Do all of these fonts support kerning?

[erketre]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Do all of these fonts support kerning?

Only STIX and Libertine have 'kern' feature
As I see now I could make it works for Crimson Pro also...

btw nice page to check:
https://fontdrop.info

[dan980]

Actually Crimson and Linux Libertine have been abandoned since 2011-2012. There are some forks: Cochineal and Libertinus. These are actively developed and now are much more complete. Probably a better starting point for a eink version.

https://github.com/alerque/libertinus
https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/cochineal

[erketre]

Originally Posted by dan980

Actually Crimson and Linux Libertine have been abandoned since 2011-2012. There are some forks: Cochineal and Libertinus. These are actively developed and now are much more complete. Probably a better starting point for a eink version.

https://github.com/alerque/libertinus

- Crimson Pro (here "Read Crimson") is a fork of Crimson but it's very different from original Crimson;
- Thanks for Libertinus, I will check it out;
- Cochineal is already on my list, I will upload it next.

[erketre]

- Added Spectral font (a bit experimental, +thickness, -letters_spacing and +greek)
- Added kerning to the other fonts, when possible (but I don't even know whether Kobo supports kerning)

[codychan]

Any thought about Bitter/BitterPro font, an alternative to Bookerly of Kindle.

[erketre]

- Added "thick" versions of Cochineal, Libertine and Libertinus;
- Changed "thickening" algo (better for small sizes).
- Spectral remake.

Originally Posted by codychan

Any thought about Bitter/BitterPro font, an alternative to Bookerly of Kindle.

Its not serif font at all. Besides, I don't find it very pretty.