Rendering issue with Calibre - all fonts italicized

[thiago.eec]

Hello folks!

I've got a rendering problem with some books with embedded fonts (I'm sending a sample book). It occurs on both Editor and Viewer.

The problem is that all the fonts are displaying italicized. I've already checked and the fonts are ok. Also, they work as suposed in iBooks, ADE, Azardi, Readium and Edge, but fail in Calibre and Sigil.

If I remove the fonts from the book, and keep the reference, then they work correctly on my computer (I have those fonts installed on my system).

What is the problem here? Am I missing something? I doubt it since the books is rendering fine on all thoses apps, with Calibre and Sigil being the exceptions.

In the image below, you can see the embedded version (on the left) and the other one with only referenced fonts (on the right). See that the left one shows the Heading and the first part of the text in a italicized manner. The right one renders correctly.



-------------------
Details:

Calibre Version: 3.26.1
OS: Windows 7 (and Windows 10 1803)

[kovidgoyal]

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...light=indesign

[thiago.eec]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...light=indesign

@kovidgoyal

Thanks for the reply.

I've alredy tried everthing suggested on the other post.

1) I'm not using subsetteds fonts.
2) The fonts were downloaded form Google Fonts and used as they were, without any changes.
3) I've also tried to convert the fonts to OTF with FontForge, but the result was the same.
4) The fonts were not exported by Indesign. I actually added the fonts latter using Calibre Editor.
5) The fonts are not obfuscated.

Also, I want to remember that the fonts themselft work fine when they are not embedded, and only referenced (but present on my system). Thus, it doesn't seem to be a problem with the font (like being corrupted or something).

[kovidgoyal]

Your attached EPUB renders correctly on my linux system, see attached.

It might be that Qt's windows font backed does not like those fonts (I'm guessing you are on windows). Probably best to use a different font. It will get fixed in calibre eventually when I move the viewer from Qt WebKit to WebEngine, but that's still some time away.

[thiago.eec]

Ok, Kovid.

Indeed I am on Windows (tried on 7 and 10).
Well, at least I know there is nothing wrong with the book.

Thanks for the support!

[grumbles]

This is a problem on Windows and has nothing to do with Indesign. I see this in Sigil as well as Calibre. I have been using Sigil to create the books and all the text in either book view or preview are displayed as italics. The same book appears the same way in Calbre's book viewer and book editor. The book displays properly in ADE. The fonts are embedded.

The book displays properly with Linux.

Whatever the cause, it is common to both Calibre and Sigil under Windows. Win 7 in my case.

[grumbles]

I can confirm that this happens with both the 32 and 64 bit versions of Win7.

[kovidgoyal]

@grumbles: Did you miss post #4 in this thread?

[Ghitulescu]

Originally Posted by grumbles

This is a problem on Windows and has nothing to do with Indesign. I see this in Sigil as well as Calibre. I have been using Sigil to create the books and all the text in either book view or preview are displayed as italics. The same book appears the same way in Calbre's book viewer and book editor. The book displays properly in ADE. The fonts are embedded.

The book displays properly with Linux.

Whatever the cause, it is common to both Calibre and Sigil under Windows. Win 7 in my case.

Is your ADE not running in Windows as well?
If displays correctly, how came you to the idea of something wrong caused by Windows...
I would say it's something wrong with calibre or sigil.
What is strange is that the fonts are not replaced by italics, rather they are regular fonts displayed as slanted (see letter a or g).

My take is that the fonts contain a wrong signalling in their header.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Ghitulescu

Is your ADE not running in Windows as well?
If displays correctly, how came you to the idea of something wrong caused by Windows...
I would say it's something wrong with calibre or sigil.
What is strange is that the fonts are not replaced by italics, rather they are regular fonts displayed as slanted (see letter a or g).

My take is that the fonts contain a wrong signalling in their header.

See post #4 in this thread. Also note that you replied to a thread from June, 2018 so a bit old.

[thiago.eec]

Like Kovid said, it was probably a bug with Qt Webkit.
The problem is gone now that Calibre uses WebEngine. Sigil also displays it correctly now, since it also moved to WebEngine.

[Ghitulescu]

Originally Posted by DNSB

See post #4 in this thread. Also note that you replied to a thread from June, 2018 so a bit old.

Well, my problem is new - so this problem it did not disappeared since 2018.
And post #4 sends to another thread that has no further information.
I usually read the thread before asking. This is the reason why I found this thread, because I've searched for an answer before posting.

Since webkit, the alleged scrapegoat, is still used in some ereaders, like iPhones and Kindles, just asking people to update their Calibre (and maybe the computer, too, since newer versions of some libraries require a new windows to work, which may require a different hardware) won't do them too much justice.

There must be a reason in the font itself why webkit thinks it's slanted. Google chrome, which apparently is based on webkit, has no issue to display it, correctly I mean.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Ghitulescu

Well, my problem is new - so this problem it did not disappeared since 2018.
And post #4 sends to another thread that has no further information.
I usually read the thread before asking. This is the reason why I found this thread, because I've searched for an answer before posting.

The issue with calibre is no longer an issue. And this is the calibre forum so we should try to stay in the general area of discussions that are relevant to calibre (IMSHO).

Originally Posted by Ghitulescu

Since webkit, the alleged scrapegoat, is still used in some ereaders, like iPhones and Kindles, just asking people to update their Calibre (and maybe the computer, too, since newer versions of some libraries require a new windows to work, which may require a different hardware) won't do them too much justice.

There must be a reason in the font itself why webkit thinks it's slanted. Google chrome, which apparently is based on webkit, has no issue to display it, correctly I mean.

While you may regard WebKit as the scapegoat, calibre no longer uses WebKit so it's a non-issue. How iOS/iPadOS and Kindles (not to mention Android and the other devices out there) function is not something that is relevant to how calibre functions.

As for the newer hardware needed for some programs? Again not really relevant to this discussion.

Chrome is no longer based on WebKit. Originally Chromium was using WebKit however due to compatibility and other issues, back in 2013 Google forked WebKit and created Blink. Other than Mozilla's Firefox using Gecko and Apple's Safari which uses WebKit2, most browsers are using Blink.

As for issues with the internals of a font, that is, again, outside the control of Kovid and the other people involved with calibre.

So unless you can post a screenshot from calibre 5.x showing the issue, this is not the place for that discussion.

[mirage]

Excuse me if I'm going further afield from this topic, but when I've seen this issue in the past, admittedly not specifically in Calibre, it was related to the order in which embedded font info was presented in css. If the italic style for a given font was listed before the normal one, I could get the inappropriate display of italicized text when it should have been normal. Reversing that order so that the @font-face selector with the font-style:normal is listed before font-style:italic often solved the problem. Whether that's the issue for @Ghitulescu or not, I can't say. But it may be worth a try.

/* incorrect order */
@font-face {
  font-family: "Janson Text LT Std";
  font-style: italic;
  font-weight: normal;
  src: url(../font/JansonTextLTStd-Italic.otf);
}
@font-face {
  font-family: "Janson Text LT Std";
  font-style: normal;
  font-weight: normal;
  src: url(../font/JansonTextLTStd-Roman.otf);
}

/* correct order */
@font-face {
  font-family: "Janson Text LT Std";
  font-style: normal;
  font-weight: normal;
  src: url(../font/JansonTextLTStd-Roman.otf);
}
@font-face {
  font-family: "Janson Text LT Std";
  font-style: italic;
  font-weight: normal;
  src: url(../font/JansonTextLTStd-Italic.otf);
}

[Ghitulescu]

Originally Posted by DNSB

While you may regard WebKit as the scapegoat, calibre no longer uses WebKit so it's a non-issue. How iOS/iPadOS and Kindles (not to mention Android and the other devices out there) function is not something that is relevant to how calibre functions.

It may not be, but nobody needs or likes a tool that creates "defective" products - be it its own defect or elsewhere in a "subcontractor".

Originally Posted by DNSB

As for the newer hardware needed for some programs? Again not really relevant to this discussion.
...
So unless you can post a screenshot from calibre 5.x showing the issue, this is not the place for that discussion.

I thought Calibre means, well, Calibre, not only Calibre 5.x. Like when people talk today of windows, they refer globally to the 7, 8 and 10 including flavours.

Originally Posted by DNSB

As for issues with the internals of a font, that is, again, outside the control of Kovid and the other people involved with calibre.

Indeed, this is true.
However, wouldn't be nice that a free tool could do things a paysoftware can't? Like patching the font, the very same way it did subsetting or embedding or any other nice features...
There is a lot of installed base of readers, and I see they do not sell that mush as before, for being superseded by tablets. People would not jump that easily in a new boat, just because.

Originally Posted by mirage

If the italic style for a given font was listed before the normal one, I could get the inappropriate display of italicized text when it should have been normal.

I think I noticed this long time ago, so long time ago that I don't even remember when. Since then, I put always the fonts in this order: R, B, I, BI.

But anyway, the fonts are not italic, but italicised (slanted) - italics use different graphs for a and g, slanted don't.

Luckily, there are not many fonts that suffer - in the past 10 years or so I found only one, Gabriola, however, recently, I found a lot of them, mostly from Google and Microsoft new fonts, free to use in web or elsewhere.

To finish, the conversion to PDF, even from calibre versions that are affected, renders a perfect display, as it should.