Support for non-western languages?

quillaja · 09-14-2009, 09:23 AM

Honestly, i'm quite disappointed that a company would release a product that doesn't support--at least displaying--any language. Why can't the sony readers display asian, arabic, or other non-western text? I think kindle has the same limitation. Frankly, it blows my mind. Not only does it limit us readers to western ebooks only, but limits the possible distribution of that company's product.

well, anyway, my question is: how many people would want support for any language? for example, supporting UTF-16 (which is allowed in the epub standard).

igorsk · 09-14-2009, 09:50 AM

Unicode is supported, it's the installed fonts that are missing necessary glyphs. If you make EPUB files with embedded fonts (or refer external fonts from CSS), they display nicely.

quillaja · 09-14-2009, 10:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by igorsk

Unicode is supported, it's the installed fonts that are missing necessary glyphs. If you make EPUB files with embedded fonts (or refer external fonts from CSS), they display nicely.

i see. perhaps the reader should have a unicode font built in, though. i made a japanese book using feedbooks.com, and the epub version won't display. of course, i can't embed a font on a book i publish there. (i could insert it myself later... but that's not the point.) international stuff should just work.

wallcraft · 09-14-2009, 10:10 AM

The thread What's the default ADE font? discusses the font provided by Adobe. It is possible for the device vendor to change the default font, or extend it to other languages. Hanlin has just done so for the V3, the EZ Reader firmware page includes "Adobe language package for Chinese, Japanese & Korean" although I have not tried it.

mumoo · 09-14-2009, 10:15 AM

I can't understand the Sony's strategy, even the Japanese is not supported by the portable reader !!?? PDF file is the only way to solve this problem now.

AprilHare · 09-14-2009, 10:23 AM

Just to refresh my memory - did LRFs have this problem on the PRS line? I assume the libre didn't..

igorsk · 09-14-2009, 10:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mumoo

I can't understand the Sony's strategy, even the Japanese is not supported by the portable reader !!?? PDF file is the only way to solve this problem now.

So far they only released on Western-language markets, so they didn't have to worry about other languages. Maybe they don't want to pay for the font license, or don't want it to be too big (for space or speed reasons), or something else.

quillaja · 09-14-2009, 10:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by igorsk

So far they only released on Western-language markets, so they didn't have to worry about other languages.

that's probably true. even so, i'd wish they'd have the foresight to imagine (1) readers in western countries sometimes want to read non-western texts, (2) if they just make it international from the start, isn't it that much easier to enter other markets in the future? plus there's the whole ebay and buying-on-the-internets thing.

HarryT · 09-14-2009, 10:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by quillaja

i see. perhaps the reader should have a unicode font built in, though.

It does have a Unicode font - it just lacks the characters for non-Western languages. "Unicode" refers to the way that the font is encoded, not to how many glyphs it contains.

Both ePub and PDF allow you to use Japanese, etc, and both file formats allow you to include whatever fonts are necessary to display the text.

View Poll Results: Do you want more support for non-western/international text ebooks?
Yes, I would like support for non-western text ebooks.	19	95.00%
No, I would not like this.	1	5.00%
I don't care. I'm indifferent.	0	0%
Voters: 20. You may not vote on this poll

09-14-2009, 09:23 AM	#1
quillaja Connoisseur Posts: 79 Karma: 42 Join Date: Sep 2009 Device: sony reader touch (prs-600)	Support for non-western languages? Honestly, i'm quite disappointed that a company would release a product that doesn't support--at least displaying--any language. Why can't the sony readers display asian, arabic, or other non-western text? I think kindle has the same limitation. Frankly, it blows my mind. Not only does it limit us readers to western ebooks only, but limits the possible distribution of that company's product. well, anyway, my question is: how many people would want support for any language? for example, supporting UTF-16 (which is allowed in the epub standard).

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09-14-2009, 09:50 AM	#2
igorsk Wizard Posts: 3,442 Karma: 300001 Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Belgium Device: PRS-500/505/700, Kindle, Cybook Gen3, Words Gear	Unicode is supported, it's the installed fonts that are missing necessary glyphs. If you make EPUB files with embedded fonts (or refer external fonts from CSS), they display nicely.

09-14-2009, 10:10 AM	#4
wallcraft reader Posts: 6,975 Karma: 5183568 Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Mississippi, USA Device: Kindle 3, Kobo Glo HD	The thread What's the default ADE font? discusses the font provided by Adobe. It is possible for the device vendor to change the default font, or extend it to other languages. Hanlin has just done so for the V3, the EZ Reader firmware page includes "Adobe language package for Chinese, Japanese & Korean" although I have not tried it.

09-14-2009, 10:15 AM	#5
mumoo Member Posts: 12 Karma: 19 Join Date: Sep 2009 Device: prs600	I can't understand the Sony's strategy, even the Japanese is not supported by the portable reader !!?? PDF file is the only way to solve this problem now.

09-14-2009, 10:23 AM	#6
AprilHare Wizard Posts: 2,981 Karma: 11862367 Join Date: Apr 2008 Device: Sony Reader PRS-T2	Just to refresh my memory - did LRFs have this problem on the PRS line? I assume the libre didn't..