Recommend a font to me

[radius]

Hey all, I was hoping to get some recommendations on a good font for reading contemporary novels.

I have been using Adobe's Minion and Myriad pair for reading epubs with, and Minion is very legible and attractive to me. However, because it is slightly delicate and has a slightly old-fashioned feeling to it, I find it is distracting to use for reading novels set in the present day.

I was hoping to get some recommendations on a typeface that is modern and fresh, open (the stock font is too condensed for my taste) and clean.

I tried using Rockwell for a while (a slab serif font) but it is too heavy for my taste.

Please don't suggest Caecilia (boring) or Fontin (the varying stroke widths don't look great on low resolution screens like the Sony's in my opinion).

I've followed all the "what's your favourite font" threads so far and none of the pictures have really grabbed me yet.

[LDBoblo]

I have settled on the following typefaces for e-ink screens:

Chaparral Pro Caption
Arno Pro Caption
Garamond Premier Pro Caption
Karmina
Scala
ITC Mendoza Roman

Garamond and Karmina are more classical-looking, especially if you use ligatures, and probably not what you're after. Chaparral Pro is my go-to wedge serif for modern stuff, followed by Scala. Mendoza Roman and Arno Pro are my favorites for "tweeners". I keep them at <10pt almost always though, and I suspect that if you go much bigger than 10pt, you can switch to a different optical set (not Caption, though Caption is good for being low-contrast [less extreme tapering]).

Some of these you'll have if you've purchased an Adobe product.

[frabjous]

If you're looking for free options, my recommendations would be these:



Charis SIL (based on Bitstream Charter)



DejaVu (based on Bitstream Vera)



Droid

I completely agree about Fontin, by the way. I find it very distracting.

[tovanhung]

Hi,

I just want to make sure. Are these Unicode fonts? I'm also finding few good Unicode fonts for read Vietnamese language. Thanks

[frabjous]

The three I mentioned are all Unicode, though I'm not sure they've got comprehensive coverage. Click the links I gave to start finding out more. I think of the three, Deja Vu is likely to have the most coverage, since it branched from Bitstream Vera precisely in order to provide full Unicode coverage.

(EDIT: From peeking a bit more, form what I could tell, all three of those have support for Vietnamese, but I haven't tested that personally, and best of luck to you if you try... and let us know the results!)

[tovanhung]

Originally Posted by frabjous

The three I mentioned are all Unicode, though I'm not sure they've got comprehensive coverage. Click the links I gave to start finding out more. I think of the three, Deja Vu is likely to have the most coverage, since it branched from Bitstream Vera precisely in order to provide full Unicode coverage.

(EDIT: From peeking a bit more, form what I could tell, all three of those have support for Vietnamese, but I haven't tested that personally, and best of luck to you if you try... and let us know the results!)

Hi Frabjous,

I tried to make Dejavu font, but it didn't show Vietnamese words correctly. Finally, I decided to come back Times New Roman font, too bad!

Anyway, thank you for your help.

[sip]

Originally Posted by radius

I have been using Adobe's Minion and Myriad pair for reading epubs with, and Minion is very legible and attractive to me.

As a designer, I absolutely love Minion for body text and Myriad for headings and sub-headings. I noticed one or two publishers used Minion for their fiction titles a few back, but most I think prefer Times New Roman (ughh).

Although a sans-serif, I recently started using MS Calibri for some of my shorter texts and have started using it on my iPhone -- it seems to display well on the PRS-505. Microsoft installs this font with MS Office 2007 (Win) and also Office 2008 (Mac).

More info here

One of the Microsoft ClearType fonts, included in Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007, designed to give clearer on-screen rendering by using dithering at the RGB pixel level.

An OpenType font that includes both lining figures and oldstyle figures.

If you want a nice legible/readable fixed-width font, try Inconsolata or even MS Consolas

[LDBoblo]

Originally Posted by sip

As a designer, I absolutely love Minion for body text and Myriad for headings and sub-headings. I noticed one or two publishers used Minion for their fiction titles a few back, but most I think prefer Times New Roman (ughh).

Although a sans-serif, I recently started using MS Calibri for some of my shorter texts and have started using it on my iPhone -- it seems to display well on the PRS-505. Microsoft installs this font with MS Office 2007 (Win) and also Office 2008 (Mac).

I've tried numerous times to get Minion Pro to display well on the PRS-505 and never really managed at any usable size. Myriad displays reasonably OK.

For some reason I never liked Calibri much and instead opted for others. Scala Sans, TheSans, Kievit, Meta, even Trade Gothic. Of course, I don't care for sans serif for novels typically, and instead keep with the ones I mentioned earlier.

Nothing looks amazing on e-ink though because e-ink is a pretty awful medium. However, it's nice to sometimes try to pretend it's not just a calculator with slightly better resolution, and a good typeface sometimes helps me distance myself from the hardware limitations and delude myself into thinking I'm reading a book.

Oh, Dolly works reasonably well too.

[radius]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll take a look. So far, Charis is the front runner.

[nightslide]

Originally Posted by frabjous

If you're looking for free options, my recommendations would be these:



Droid

Hi there,
I appreciate the help, but am confused (very new to e-booking and fonts). I really like the looks of the Droid one, but when I went to their page, it seems the only way to get it is to buy the 'pro' version. Is there a free version that I've missed?

Thanks for your help!

d

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by radius

Please don't suggest Caecilia (boring) or Fontin (the varying stroke widths don't look great on low resolution screens like the Sony's in my opinion).

Fontin actually looks better on a low res screen then a high-res screen (1600x1200). This is my opinion. And I do agree that Caecilia is dull. May as well use Times New Roman.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by nightslide

Hi there,
I appreciate the help, but am confused (very new to e-booking and fonts). I really like the looks of the Droid one, but when I went to their page, it seems the only way to get it is to buy the 'pro' version. Is there a free version that I've missed?

Thanks for your help!

d

I've tried the Droid fonts and I didn't care for them. They just didn't do anything for me.

[JSWolf]

What font(s) are good for the body text that are free and have a full family (normal, bold, italic, bold italic)? And for the header text, what font(s) that are free and have a full family?

[frabjous]

Originally Posted by nightslide

Hi there,
I appreciate the help, but am confused (very new to e-booking and fonts). I really like the looks of the Droid one, but when I went to their page, it seems the only way to get it is to buy the 'pro' version. Is there a free version that I've missed?

Since I use Ubuntu/Linux, I just installed the ttf-droid package through Synaptic. But assuming you're using Windows, it looks like you can get .zip file containing them from here (link near bottom):
http://damieng.com/blog/2007/11/14/d...oogle-ascender

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What font(s) are good for the body text that are free and have a full family (normal, bold, italic, bold italic)? And for the header text, what font(s) that are free and have a full family?

I think all the ones I suggested have a full family.

But what do you have in mind? The Sony unfortunately, won't let you use a true italic or true bold to complement its default font (And of course changing the default font at all requires flashing.), as far as I know. I suppose you could embed them in ePubs or PDFs, though.