FW 5.3.x - 5.7.x Fonts Hack

[luiz_ng]

Hi,
Does anyone know what font kindle used in title bar and Go To TOC menu when reading? It’s not fully supported in my language so I want to change it. I tried changing amazon ember but it was still the same.

[NiLuJe]

Futura or Ember, IIRC. (Helvetica in very old FWs).

[starcrys]

Hm...I'm not sure if this is off topic or something, but I'm a bit muddy on the font hack stuff. If I have a system that has FW 5.10 and above, and I actually just want to have custom font for the files (.txt format by the way, I know that the kindle will allow for custom fonts in .azw3 format) that I'll be reading (e.g. on PW4, provided I get it JBed and install the fonts hack), what will I have to override since the custom fonts won't appear on the Aa/normal fonts screen? Or maybe the font hack doesn't work in such a high firmware version/PW4?

I know I can convert the .txt to .azw3, but I'm looking to see if a simpler solution can be done without have to do the conversion (since I have lots of files numbering to the hundreds and thousands...I don't want to think of the time it will take to do all that). Thanks.

[NiLuJe]

I don't actually recall if I ever tested this with TXT files, but I can say that stuff generally appear to still behave (at least on 5.9.7).

The only thing that got broken are FreeType overrides, but that was an extra optional feature, with a built-in safety check, so it just gets automagically disabled on unsupported FW.

[knc1]

Ah...
*.txt is how Lab126 spells *.htm (or *.html).

[mbrd2019]

Hi, NiLuJe, many thanks for your great works, esp. your excellent font hack extension, by which i turn off "antialias" in my KV, making fonts outline sharper and released my eyes a lot (very personal sense), with the following code:

<edit name="antialias" mode="assign"><bool>false</bool></edit>

It makes me to pick up my KV again which thrown aside for a long time.

Here is my problem:
Now i find out this turning off "antialias" func works not on custom-added fonts, though well on system-embedded fonts.

Do i have an opportunity to ask for solutions for such func on custom-added fonts?

(temporarily i hack the system fonts till now, but i hate to re-hack when a new font is enlisted)

Thanks in advance.

[NiLuJe]

Define "custom" . There may be scoping issues where AA is concerned, check all the base fontconfig settings.

It's been years since I looked at this stuff, so that's a bit of a wild guess. You can check live with fc-match's verbose output.

[mbrd2019]

You can check live with fc-match's verbose output.

Thanks. Yet I am shame to say me a newbie of newbies, even the code above i got it simply by web search, so forgive me cannot catch you a master well here.
For KV, maybe it accesses custom fonts differently from embedded ones. Anyway, will hang on to see if sb would offer a good example, who cares much on AA as I do.

[sosik1]

Something went wrong. Paperwhite gen. 1:

- 5.6.1.1 -- downgrade to 5.3.5
- jailbreak
- update to 5.6.1.1 from *.bin file
- install KUAL, MRPI, Python and font hack from https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=225030
- paste my font in *.ttf format to linkfonts/fonts folder
- KUAL > Fonts > Fonts Hack Behavior > Update fontconfig cache
- restart...
- 6 original fonts + publisher font

Sorry for my english.

[NiLuJe]

@sosik1: And what's the issue, exactly?

[sosik1]

My own font is not recognized in Aa menu.

[NiLuJe]

@sosik1: read the big fat warning about FW >= 5.4.x in the first post.

[kokaros]

Hey @NiLuJe.
I'm the guy who recently made a thread about backing up book highlights and notes. I'm posting this here as it's directly related to this post.
Reminder: I own a PW3 running on FW v5.12.4

I've followed the steps you've written in this guide, and the *extra cautious* you linked to here about the font override:

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR FW >= 5.4.x USERS: I repeat, currently, the only way to actually use your custom fonts on your device is to use the Font Overrides feature. If this is still a bit muddy for you, check the first part of this post for a barebones version of the best procedure to follow on these new devices/firmware versions.

However, even after following the font override instructions you gave, the font does not change within the native Kindle reader.

Do I need to do this for it to work?

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

Like my K2/3/4 Fonts hack, you will also have a choice of three different FreeType libraries to choose from in the Fonts -> FreeType Override KUAL menu. Freetype's job is to render the fonts, so enabling this can have a drastic impact on the 'look' of your fonts. It can also help avoid a lot of weird issues with custom fonts. I'm personally usually running the BCI override.
To give you a rough idea of the differences between the three choices: BCI should be the closest to Amazon's, it uses the native bytecode to hint TrueType fonts; AutoHint instead relies on freetype's own code to automatically hint fonts (it can help with fonts with broken bytecode, or at least bytecode that freetype chokes on); and light is basically autohint with a twist, might be a little closer to BCI.
(I'll refer you to the freetype & fontconfig documentation if you want more info about all this).
You'll need to restart the X server (via the Fonts > Restart the X server now KUAL button) to take an FT override into account. Make sure your system is in a sane state (ie. it cold boots properly) before using an FT override (meaning don't try to do a billion things at once, take it step by step), and make sure the X server restarts properly before rebooting your Kindle.

Also, I don't quite understand what you are trying to say in this section:

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

On the subject of Code2000, note that it's only used as a last resort fallback. If you happen to install a custom font supporting a specific script, it will get picked up to render that script over Code2000, no matter what your fallback override is set to. On the other hand, for complex scripts, it might render with some minor to showstopping layout issues: this is what the fallback override was designed to fix .

[NiLuJe]

This is *extremely* untested on 5.12.x (and, much more generally, on > 5.9.x). So, no idea. If you're familiar with fontconfig, you can check the generated shards for obvious mistakes and double-check the mappings via fc-match.

While I haven't bothered to check because it'd be a waste of time without a device to test it on, I would expect this to be broken on FW where Amazon added support for custom fonts, so, it's not terribly surprising.

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FreeType Overrides are (safely) ignored on FW > 5.8.x (and/or earlier, not that it matters here), so that's irrelevant .

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That just means Code2000 is at the bottom of the matching list (as it should, it's got decent coverage, but it's fugly as hell, and has weird metrics). Even with a fallback override set.

[mergen3107]

@kokaros
Why do you want to use the Font Hack in the first place?
FW 5.9.4+ natively support adding extra fonts to /fonts folder in the visible USB root.