Embedding Adobe Fonts into a Kindle title

[Monaghan]

I'm looking to embed a font from Adobe Fonts into a title which will be sold on Kindle. The font's licence allows for EPUB embedding.

Upon creating the file, the custom font shows up correctly in Adobe Digital Editions and Sigil, but not in Kindle Previewer 3 or the KDP online previewer.

It only appears correctly in Kindle Previewer 3 when font obfuscation is turned off from within Sigil, which would presumably break the licence agreement for the font. I have tried both "IDPF's Method" and "Adobe's Method" of obfuscation with the same result.

I am hopefully missing something blindingly obvious here! My experience with embedding fonts into EPUBs thus far has been with freely available fonts that do not need to be encrypted, so I have not encountered this issue before. Any and all advice very welcome.

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Edit: Perhaps these fonts should be subset instead of obfuscated?

[Quoth]

You only "distribute" epub to Amazon. You upload an epub to KDP.
Use Calibre to subset the fonts. Import Docx to Calibre. Obviously you can use Sigil if you are needing a more custom approach.
If the customer's Kindle or app can't do KF8 or KFX they get a KF7 format file without fonts. The KF8 and KFX are almost just epub with a wrapper and optionally DRM on KF8 and always DRM on KFX (even if you asked for DRM free).

Font obfuscation doesn't work on some epub ereaders and may not work at all with Amazon. Sub-setting a font is the desired solution.

[jhowell]

I commented on this topic in another recent thread.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...93#post4151493

[Monaghan]

Originally Posted by Quoth

You only "distribute" epub to Amazon. You upload an epub to KDP.
Use Calibre to subset the fonts. Import Docx to Calibre. Obviously you can use Sigil if you are needing a more custom approach.
If the customer's Kindle or app can't do KF8 or KFX they get a KF7 format file without fonts. The KF8 and KFX are almost just epub with a wrapper and optionally DRM on KF8 and always DRM on KFX (even if you asked for DRM free).

Font obfuscation doesn't work on some epub ereaders and may not work at all with Amazon. Sub-setting a font is the desired solution.

Thanks for this. Subsetting it is! I'll keep it all within Sigil using the excellent SubsetFonts plugin.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Monaghan

Thanks for this. Subsetting it is! I'll keep it all within Sigil using the excellent SubsetFonts plugin.

If you mean, Adobe Fonts in the cloud, give it up right now.

Quite simply, it doesn't work. You can't subset the fonts, without encryption. With the encryption, you can't get past ePUBcheck. Without getting past ePUBcheck, you can't publish the cursed thing. End of story.

Quoth is talking about regular, everyday, NOT in the cloud fonts. If you mean cloud fonts...fuhgeddaboudit. Adobe's assurance that you 'can" produce ebooks with their fonts only goes as far as, if the ebook will be read on your computer, or distributed in your own system, or anywhere other than ePUBcheck-required retailers.

Print designers always act like I have cooties, when I say I don't use Adobe (cloud) fonts. That's why. For eBooks, utterly worthless.

Hitch

[Quoth]

Yes, so called "Cloud Fonts" can't be used in real life for any of the ebook retailers that make up about 100% of sales.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Yes, so called "Cloud Fonts" can't be used in real life for any of the ebook retailers that make up about 100% of sales.

I've yet to meet anyone that says the phrase or brand "Adobe fonts" that means anything other than the Adobe Cloud Fonts.

Hitch

[Quoth]

But likely you and I used Adobe products before Web sites existed. The actual Internet is about 15 years older than Web sites, but Adobe stuff only came on floppies and then CDs before 1992.

[DiapDealer]

Even if you could use the cloud fonts, it is my understanding that one should never encrypt the fonts used in a KDP submission. Amazon applies their own font obfuscation algorithm do they they not? Or has that changed?

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Quoth

The KF8 and KFX are almost just epub with a wrapper

Calling it "wrapper" is a pretty big stretch. While converting KF8 to epub might seem as simple as yanking an epub out of a binary wrapper, I can assure you that it's anything but. It's a full-blown conversion both ways.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Even if you could use the cloud fonts, it is my understanding that one should never encrypt the fonts used in a KDP submission. Amazon applies their own font obfuscation algorithm do they they not? Or has that changed?

Yah, ixnay on the encrypt-ay. And yes, they do provide their own font obfuscation algo, albeit a fairly weak one, to my experience.

I wasn't whingeing, to be clear, about encryption. It's the inability to actually subset and embed the font file, that drives me nuts. Adobe simply...fibs. They tell people that they 'can' use Adobe (cloud) fonts in their eBooks but for all practical intents and purposes, it's utter BS. You can't use an Adobe-issued ePUB with the cloud fonts at any place that has ePUBcheck, so where the hell are you with it?

Hitch

[Monaghan]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Quite simply, it doesn't work. You can't subset the fonts, without encryption. With the encryption, you can't get past ePUBcheck. Without getting past ePUBcheck, you can't publish the cursed thing. End of story.

I subset the fonts from the Adobe Fonts subscription. The resulting EPUB passed EPUBcheck and the fonts render perfectly in the resulting Kindle file (checked on Kindle Previewer 3, KDP online previewer and physical Kindle devices).

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Monaghan

I subset the fonts from the Adobe Fonts subscription. The resulting EPUB passed EPUBcheck and the fonts render perfectly in the resulting Kindle file (checked on Kindle Previewer 3, KDP online previewer and physical Kindle devices).

Well, then you're the first. Subsetting fonts means to embed the entire font file, into the ePUB, and then removing the unused characters from the file, right? When you use that functionality from the Cloud, the fonts are encrypted. No option for them not to be. And I've never seen them pass ePUBcheck.

You did this simply by exporting an ePUB, from InDesign? And it all worked?

I'm not saying you didn't. But seriously, I've never seen it work.

Hitch

[Notjohn]

Originally Posted by Hitch

You can't use an Adobe-issued ePUB with the cloud fonts at any place that has ePUBcheck, so where the hell are you with it?

Does Amazon now require epubcheck?

[Quoth]

Amazon runs some sort of check. So does Google and Smashwords. You can fail one and not the others.
Smashwords seems to be the most fussy.

Certainly I now make sure I pass the Ladybird bug check in Calibre Editor and epub check, which I have also in the editor.

I also manually check every TOC/NCX action in Calibre Viewer and also any links, including footnote type with an explicit return link. Those can be wrong and yet book pass everyone's tests/checks.

Note if you reference fonts and they are not embedded and don't exist on the target everything will seem OK on desktop, or on any ereader or phone or tablet where in the past you manually added the fonts.

So I never add fonts to my Kindle, Kobo, phones or tablets and check that the ebook fonts do work. If I've done something new with a font I check that the fall back no fonts versions of KF7 works OK on a Kindle DXG and also on a PW3 with Amazon default rather than "Publisher Fonts", because few people with Kindles select "Publisher Fonts".