Should Chinese Fonts be Embedded in Ebooks?

[JSWolf]

If you emebd Chinese fonts in a Kindle eBooks (KF8), how do you get the readers to turn on Publisher font? The problem there is that sure the Chinese fonts will show up under Publisher Font, but you get either a very poor sans-serif or the default serif font. You cannot have partial embedded fonts with your choice of main font with Kindles. This to me is a major design flaw in the software.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If you emebd Chinese fonts in a Kindle eBooks (KF8), how do you get the readers to turn on Publisher font? The problem there is that sure the Chinese fonts will show up under Publisher Font, but you get either a very poor sans-serif or the default serif font. You cannot have partial embedded fonts with your choice of main font with Kindles. This to me is a major design flaw in the software.

Yup, there it is.

I cannot tell you guys how FEW readers seem to even know that "publisher font" choice exists. This "discrepancy" (?) with the PPW family changed entirely how we coded eBooks, back when we first realized the challenge. You stand a very, very good chance of people not knowing it and not ever--ever--changing the book to Publisher font, so you can never assume, as we did with Fires and the K3's, etc. that the embedded chapter head, title page, etc., fonts would display, whilst the reader could change the body fonts to their whim. Ixnay on that.

The PPW family overrides EVERYTHING. And if you (the reader) don't know about Publisher fonts, well. Then for Chinese, you're hosed.

Hitch

[Nightflyer]

* I don't know about fonts and Unicode and stuff but regarding Chinese characters embedded in English books.
* Seems like you would need the characters (font) that meets the original intent of the author i.e. simplified or traditional. So theoretically you would need both types of fonts to cover everything.
* From reader's perspective, some would want to see authors intent, some would like to see simplified and some would like to see traditional. So a great option would be an option to select any of those, which probably is not realistic.
* Chinese readers can usually figure out the word or sentence when looking at either one but not always and not correct especially when it gets into nouns, history, etc.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Nightflyer

* I don't know about fonts and Unicode and stuff but regarding Chinese characters embedded in English books.
* Seems like you would need the characters (font) that meets the original intent of the author i.e. simplified or traditional. So theoretically you would need both types of fonts to cover everything.
* From reader's perspective, some would want to see authors intent, some would like to see simplified and some would like to see traditional. So a great option would be an option to select any of those, which probably is not realistic.
* Chinese readers can usually figure out the word or sentence when looking at either one but not always and not correct especially when it gets into nouns, history, etc.

Read post #17 and you'll see part of the problem.

[Turtle91]

I've seen some ebooks (eg. Harry Potter) with a warning at the front telling people that they need to turn on Java for the best experience, etc.

Not that it is the best solution, but couldn't someone put a page telling the reader to enable embedded fonts, or somesuch??

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Read post #17 and you'll see part of the problem.

As far as Kindles are concerned, this is a non-issue. You don't need to embed Chinese fonts for Kindles that support embedded fonts, because they natively support both Traditional and Simplified Chinese. I.e., whether a user enables the display of publisher fonts doesn't really make much of a difference.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

As far as Kindles are concerned, this is a non-issue. You don't need to embed Chinese fonts for Kindles that support embedded fonts, because they natively support both Traditional and Simplified Chinese. I.e., whether a user enables the display of publisher fonts doesn't really make much of a difference.

Doits, what do YOU do for the older devices? The early k3's, etc.?

Hitch

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Doits, what do YOU do for the older devices? The early k3's, etc.?

K3s with the latest firmware should support Chinese. For K1s and K2s you can simply hide the Chinese characters with media queries. (Tex's client also included transliterations.)

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

K3s with the latest firmware should support Chinese. For K1s and K2s you can simply hide the Chinese characters with media queries. (Tex's client also included transliterations.)

Okay...yes, if you have transliterations, sure, that'll work.

Hitch

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

I've seen some ebooks (eg. Harry Potter) with a warning at the front telling people that they need to turn on Java for the best experience, etc.

Not that it is the best solution, but couldn't someone put a page telling the reader to enable embedded fonts, or somesuch??

Yes, this is "a" solution that gets recommended sometimes, but as we all know, 99.99% of the readers don't even look at or see the frontmatter. (Especially now since many ereaders instantly open to "Chapter 1".)

Originally Posted by Doitsu

For K1s and K2s you can simply hide the Chinese characters with media queries. (Tex's client also included transliterations.)

... this is actually a great idea:

@media amzn-mobi {
	.chinese {
		display: none;
	}
	.japanese {
		display: none;
	}
}

Like you said, the transliteration is already there, so if the asian characters don't appear, you aren't missing much and won't see the "missing character" boxes either.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

K3s with the latest firmware should support Chinese. For K1s and K2s you can simply hide the Chinese characters with media queries. (Tex's client also included transliterations.)

And DX/DXG.