Cyrillic FB2 -> EPUB -> PRS-505 = Fail

[regul8or]

I tried to use EPUB instead of LRF for format. Unfortunately, for books in Russian I tried the result is less then satisfactory.

EPUB is generated with all Cyrillics in place and utf-8 encoding. Device itself have Unicode support and Unicode font installed. But all Cyrillic characters in the book are displayed as ????? It's hard to read this, you know .

Is there anything I missed?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by regul8or

I tried to use EPUB instead of LRF for format. Unfortunately, for books in Russian I tried the result is less then satisfactory.

EPUB is generated with all Cyrillics in place and utf-8 encoding. Device itself have Unicode support and Unicode font installed. But all Cyrillic characters in the book are displayed as ????? It's hard to read this, you know .

Is there anything I missed?

You missed embedding a Cyrillic font into the ePub or on the Reader. You'll then have to edit the CSS so the ePub can use the font(s) be they on the Reader or in the ePub.

[Peter Sorotokin]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You missed embedding a Cyrillic font into the ePub or on the Reader. You'll then have to edit the CSS so the ePub can use the font(s) be they on the Reader or in the ePub.

You can also use online fb2epub converter at http://sorotokin.com/fb2epub.html (or get the code run it locally from http://code.google.com/p/epub-tools/). It does embed subsetted cyrillic fonts in EPUB.

[stahanovez]

If I want to read an ebook in cyrillic on Sony PRS 505 is it enough to creat an epub with embed cyrillic font?

without to flash the Sony PRS 505 with russian hack-firmware?

I don't want to lose my warranty.

[kiklop74]

Originally Posted by stahanovez

If I want to read an ebook in cyrillic on Sony PRS 505 is it enough to creat an epub with embed cyrillic font?

without to flash the Sony PRS 505 with russian hack-firmware?

I don't want to lose my warranty.

Yes. It is enough.

[regul8or]

Do I need fonts to be embedded to the book if reader already flashed with unicode fonts with cyrillics?

[kiklop74]

Originally Posted by regul8or

Do I need fonts to be embedded to the book if reader already flashed with unicode fonts with cyrillics?

Actually yes. The reason for this is that PRS-505 has two sets of fonts. On set is used natively by the device for it's LRF format. However epub software uses it's own fonts. So when you flash the device you change only fonts used for LRF.

To overcome this limitation you can do 2 things:

1. Embed Cyrillic fonts in epub
2. Point in css of epub to use device's LRF fonts
Here is an example:

@font-face {font-family: "serif1";src:url(res:///opt/sony/ebook/FONT/tt0011m_.ttf)} 
@font-face {font-family: "sans-serif1";src:url(res:///opt/sony/ebook/FONT/tt0003m_.ttf)} 

body{font-family: serif1, serif}
p {font-family: serif1, serif}
h1 {font-family: sans-serif1, sans-serif}

You can see that apart from specifying the new fonts I also add the default ones. This is just in case you use epub on some other device so it can fallback to default fonts in case of need. Otherwise reader might crash.

As a side note I can say that by pointing epub to use LRF fonts you are tying
the book to specific kind of device which may or may not be good for you. It is something you should have in mind when deciding how to prepare your ebooks.

[regul8or]

Thanks for the detailed response. I believe it will help to solve all my issues.