Embedded Fonts Not Displaying in EPUB

[Siavahda]

I'm using EPUB, not KEPUB, which I acknowledge may be the issue! But I don't know, so I figured I'd ask.

I have a few books that occasionally use non-standard characters, like writing ancient Greek. When this happens, there's a blank space in the book where the word should be, presumably because my user-added font doesn't have the right characters.

But is this really how it works? There's just a blank space, even if the font embedded in the book DOES have the right characters? The Kobo doesn't default to the embedded font for that word?

I fixed it by going into the ebook files and creating span classes that set the embedded font around those words, like so

.accent {
font-style: normal;
font-weight: normal;
font-family: "DejaVuSerif";
}

And I'm happy to keep doing that; it's not going to be a common enough issue to bother me. I'm just wondering if there's a neat little trick (like with the config file or something) to tell the Kobo to use the embedded font by default if the word won't display. ?

[JSWolf]

Please show is your HTML and CSS for where the embedded font is being used. It's a guessing game otherwise.

[Siavahda]

I don't think it's a CSS question? I'm asking if the Kobo or the file defaults to the embedded font if the specified one doesn't have the correct characters.

The issue in this file was that whoever made the ebook forgot to use the relative span classes around some instances of the not-English. I was surprised the Kobo would show a blank space rather than pulling something from the embedded font/s. But I guess that's just not how they work?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Siavahda

I figured it out - whatever moron created the ebook forgot to use the embedded font in some places. They made span classes for some instances of the not-English and just forgot to mark others. Not a technical error, just a human one!

There's a solution for that. Use a font that has the non-English as your main font. For example, ChareInk7SP has a lot of non-English in it.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Siavahda

I don't think it's a CSS question? I'm asking if the Kobo or the file defaults to the embedded font if the specified one doesn't have the correct characters.

That is one of the nice features when using kepub. You can specify up to 4 supplemental fonts which will be used to supply glyphs missing in the main font. For my uses, I tend to set Code2000 as the first supplemental font since it is free and has an excellent glyph selection. Ugly as homemade sin but reliable.

For epubs, you need to embed the fonts and then specify using that font for those glypjs which can be a total pain at times.

[JSWolf]

I find that ChareInk7SP is a rather good font for most glyphs you'd need.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I find that ChareInk7SP is a rather good font for most glyphs you'd need.

Whereas I find that if you need support outside of Latin and Cyrillic alphabets, Charis SIL 7 is not a great choice. Even the Hellenic (Greek or Coptic) block shows 15 of 135 glyphs supported. Looking at diacritical marks (regular and extended) shows 11 of 143 supported. Over all of a potential 65,535 glyphs, Charis Sil 7 supports 3953 which is an improvement of the 3856 in Charis SIL 6.2.

Compare this to Code2000 which offers 63153 glyphs or Microsoft Arial Unicode MS which offers 50,376 glyphs. Admittedly this comes at the cost of 11MB and 22MB file sizes and no italic/bold/bold-italic variants.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Whereas I find that if you need support outside of Latin and Cyrillic alphabets, Charis SIL 7 is not a great choice. Even the Hellenic (Greek or Coptic) block shows 15 of 135 glyphs supported. Looking at diacritical marks (regular and extended) shows 11 of 143 supported. Over all of a potential 65,535 glyphs, Charis Sil 7 supports 3953 which is an improvement of the 3856 in Charis SIL 6.2.

Compare this to Code2000 which offers 63153 glyphs or Microsoft Arial Unicode MS which offers 50,376 glyphs. Admittedly this comes at the cost of 11MB and 22MB file sizes and no italic/bold/bold-italic variants.

The problem with Code2000 is there is no bold, bold italic, or italic versions.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Compare this to Code2000 which offers 63153 glyphs or Microsoft Arial Unicode MS which offers 50,376 glyphs. Admittedly this comes at the cost of 11MB and 22MB file sizes and no italic/bold/bold-italic variants.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The problem with Code2000 is there is no bold, bold italic, or italic versions.

Jon, please read the quoted portion of my original message which you quoted. Pay special attention to the last few words which I have bolded. Are you perchance employed by the Redundant Department of Redundancy Department?