Reading documents in Indic languages in Kindle 3

nofrills · 09-25-2011, 04:33 PM

I have been trying for past two days to read Bengali documents on Kindle 3. I have a bunch of HTML files with UTF-8 encoding. They render perfectly in any computer web browser. But Not in Kindle 3.

I have already installed the appropriate fonts using NiLuJe's method. But now the problem is that now my kindle hangs and reboots whenever I try to open ANY document.

I would really appreciate it if you guys share your experiences regarding reading indic scripts on Kindle 3.

NiLuJe · 09-25-2011, 08:44 PM

@nofrills: Try another font (or the full hack with an FT override). For some reason, the FT lib bundled with FW 3.x chokes on some fonts on some devices.

I'm not familiar with indic, but if it's a RTL script, you can forget about it anyway.

nofrills · 09-25-2011, 09:54 PM

@NiLuJe: Thanks for your suggestion. Changing the font kind of worked. Kindle doesn't auto reboot anymore.

Bengali is not RTL script, but it is very different from latin or cyrillic scripts in one respect: it has consonant conjuncts (Basically ligatures which denotes multiple letters with a single letter). This ones are still not getting rendered properly. I'll keep on searching better methods.

NiLuJe · 09-26-2011, 01:39 AM

@nofrills: I imagine you made sure the font you used actually supported said glyphs

.

I don't know the extent to which they're used in indic, and I do know some complex diacritics and ligatures won't work on the kindle software, but simple ones should. I can confirm that the more or less sole one still used in modern french (oe => œ) does work fine, provided the file is correctly encoded in UTF-8, and the font supports the glyph.

EDIT: Okay, from what I can tell, it's using multi-glyphs ligatures, which is precisely what's not supported on the Kindle (no real complex text layout engine), whereas my dumb exemple is a single-glyph ligature.

On the other hand, the K3 browser *should* handle such scripts, but that doesn't help you much ;D.

tomsem · 09-26-2011, 08:32 PM

Consider using PDF. It will not reflow, but at least the scripts should be rendered correctly.

NiLuJe · 09-26-2011, 11:35 PM

Yep, forgot to mention that

.

nofrills · 09-28-2011, 03:34 PM

Thanks to all of you. I am really grateful for your suggestions regarding this somewhat uncommon problem of mine.

@NiLuJe: You're quite right. Bengali uses multi-glyph ligatures. They don't have different unicode representation. It's the job of the rendering engine to render them properly.

For all its worth, I mailed amazon.com customer care requesting this feature in the next firmware upgrade. But I'm not really hopeful though. Can any of you tell me if any of the reading apps running on top of the Kindle OS support complex script rendering?

@tomsem: I am currently following what you suggested. I'm generating pdf's from xelatex and it works quite well. For anybody interested in doing the same, I'd share the method I followed: http://methopath.wordpress.com/2008/...gali-in-latex/.

09-25-2011, 04:33 PM	#1
nofrills Junior Member Posts: 3 Karma: 10 Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: Kolkata Device: Amazon Kindle 3	Reading documents in Indic languages in Kindle 3 I have been trying for past two days to read Bengali documents on Kindle 3. I have a bunch of HTML files with UTF-8 encoding. They render perfectly in any computer web browser. But Not in Kindle 3. I have already installed the appropriate fonts using NiLuJe's method. But now the problem is that now my kindle hangs and reboots whenever I try to open ANY document. I would really appreciate it if you guys share your experiences regarding reading indic scripts on Kindle 3.

09-26-2011, 01:39 AM	#4
NiLuJe BLAM! Posts: 13,480 Karma: 26012494 Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Paris, France Device: Kindle 2i, 3g, 4, 5w, PW, PW2, PW5; Kobo H2O, Forma, Elipsa, Sage, C2E	@nofrills: I imagine you made sure the font you used actually supported said glyphs . I don't know the extent to which they're used in indic, and I do know some complex diacritics and ligatures won't work on the kindle software, but simple ones should. I can confirm that the more or less sole one still used in modern french (oe => œ) does work fine, provided the file is correctly encoded in UTF-8, and the font supports the glyph. EDIT: Okay, from what I can tell, it's using multi-glyphs ligatures, which is precisely what's not supported on the Kindle (no real complex text layout engine), whereas my dumb exemple is a single-glyph ligature. On the other hand, the K3 browser should handle such scripts, but that doesn't help you much ;D. Last edited by NiLuJe; 09-26-2011 at 01:47 AM.

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09-25-2011, 08:44 PM	#2
NiLuJe BLAM! Posts: 13,480 Karma: 26012494 Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Paris, France Device: Kindle 2i, 3g, 4, 5w, PW, PW2, PW5; Kobo H2O, Forma, Elipsa, Sage, C2E	@nofrills: Try another font (or the full hack with an FT override). For some reason, the FT lib bundled with FW 3.x chokes on some fonts on some devices. I'm not familiar with indic, but if it's a RTL script, you can forget about it anyway.

09-25-2011, 09:54 PM	#3
nofrills Junior Member Posts: 3 Karma: 10 Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: Kolkata Device: Amazon Kindle 3	@NiLuJe: Thanks for your suggestion. Changing the font kind of worked. Kindle doesn't auto reboot anymore. Bengali is not RTL script, but it is very different from latin or cyrillic scripts in one respect: it has consonant conjuncts (Basically ligatures which denotes multiple letters with a single letter). This ones are still not getting rendered properly. I'll keep on searching better methods.

09-26-2011, 08:32 PM	#5
tomsem Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,498 Karma: 26425959 Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: USA Device: iPhone 15PM, Kindle Scribe, iPad mini 6, PocketBook InkPad Color 3	Consider using PDF. It will not reflow, but at least the scripts should be rendered correctly.

09-26-2011, 11:35 PM	#6
NiLuJe BLAM! Posts: 13,480 Karma: 26012494 Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Paris, France Device: Kindle 2i, 3g, 4, 5w, PW, PW2, PW5; Kobo H2O, Forma, Elipsa, Sage, C2E	Yep, forgot to mention that .

09-28-2011, 03:34 PM	#7
nofrills Junior Member Posts: 3 Karma: 10 Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: Kolkata Device: Amazon Kindle 3	Thanks to all of you. I am really grateful for your suggestions regarding this somewhat uncommon problem of mine. @NiLuJe: You're quite right. Bengali uses multi-glyph ligatures. They don't have different unicode representation. It's the job of the rendering engine to render them properly. For all its worth, I mailed amazon.com customer care requesting this feature in the next firmware upgrade. But I'm not really hopeful though. Can any of you tell me if any of the reading apps running on top of the Kindle OS support complex script rendering? @tomsem: I am currently following what you suggested. I'm generating pdf's from xelatex and it works quite well. For anybody interested in doing the same, I'd share the method I followed: http://methopath.wordpress.com/2008/...gali-in-latex/.

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