Embedded fonts.

[kamanza]

As I have no readers and view books on my PC only, I have a following question:
If i want different fonts - serif, sans-serif, monospace - to differentiate between types of content (e. g. showing computer text, telepathic communications, etc.), but specific fonts are not important, - do readers contain these types of fonts, or do I have to embed them?

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by kamanza

[...]do readers contain these types of fonts, or do I have to embed them?

Pretty much all ePub readers (and Kindles) come with sans-serif, serif and monospaced fonts.

For testing purposes, you may want to download ADE, whose RMSDK engine is used by the reading apps of all major ePub eInk readers.
(Note that the latest ePub3-enabled PC version comes with RMSDK 11, however, the reading apps of most devices still use RMSDK 10.)

[kamanza]

Thanks a lot. ADE or Sony Reader are what i read my books on & i know that they have these fonts. I just wanted to be sure that stand-alone readers have them too. It helps to keep the files smaller.

[GeoffR]

Kobo readers don't come with a monospace font. Although users can sideload one if they choose, my guess is that the vast majority won't have done that.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

Kobo readers don't come with a monospace font. Although users can sideload one if they choose, my guess is that the vast majority won't have done that.

Even if they do, I guess it won't be used if the code specifies "font-family: monospace".

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

Kobo readers don't come with a monospace font. Although users can sideload one if they choose, my guess is that the vast majority won't have done that.

AFAIK, Kobos come with two different rendering engines: RMSDK and ACCESS.

Can you please open the test file with both of them and post a screen capture.
(IIRC, you'll have to change the file extension to kepub for the ACCESS test.)

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

AFAIK, Kobos come with two different rendering engines: RMSDK and ACCESS.

Can you please open the test file with both of them and post a screen capture.
(IIRC, you'll have to change the file extension to kepub for the ACCESS test.)

There is not much point testing on my device because I have sideloaded fonts and patched firmware, but I can tell you that for a stock device with the "Document Default" or "Publisher Default" font selected both readers will use Georgia for font-family:serif and Avenir Next for font-family:sans-serif, but for font-family:monospace the ACCESS reader will use Avenir Next while the RMSDK reader will use Georgia.

(To test the ACCESS reader the book has to be sideloaded with the double extension .kepub.epub.)

Edit: I should add that that applies to the current firmware. The fonts were different in earlier firmware, and will probably be different again in future firmware. There is no way to know what fonts will be on future devices, so if your book depends on the use of particular fonts then you need to embed your own. Just make sure you do it so that the user can still adjust the main reading font (i.e. don't force a particular font to be used for "nomal" paragraphs.)