MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Kobo's font rendering problem... have they fixed it?

GeoffR · 07-17-2015, 04:39 AM

I thought of another thing: Way back in firmware 2.8.1 the font hinting might not have been enabled by default, which in later firmware it is. In current firmware the built-in stylesheet has an item body { -kobo-font-hintstyle: 1; } to turn on hinting which doesn't seem to be present in firmware 2.8.1

There have been a number of observations that hinting doesn't seem to help on an e-ink screen, and there are some cases where it makes the font look much worse. You could try turning off the hinting in later firmware and see if that makes it look more like what you see in 2.8.1, either by modifying the kepub book's stylesheet to set body { -kobo-font-hinstyle: 0 !important; } (I haven't tested that) or by stripping the hinting from the font itself.

Edit: This post has screenshots showing a (fairly extreme) example of how much a font can be improved by removing the hinting.

Edit2: Firmware version 3.1.0 was the first that had -kobo-font-hintstyle: 1; in the stylesheet.

07-17-2015, 04:39 AM	#4
GeoffR Wizard Posts: 3,821 Karma: 19162882 Join Date: Nov 2012 Location: Te Riu-a-Māui Device: Kobo Glo	I thought of another thing: Way back in firmware 2.8.1 the font hinting might not have been enabled by default, which in later firmware it is. In current firmware the built-in stylesheet has an item body { -kobo-font-hintstyle: 1; } to turn on hinting which doesn't seem to be present in firmware 2.8.1 There have been a number of observations that hinting doesn't seem to help on an e-ink screen, and there are some cases where it makes the font look much worse. You could try turning off the hinting in later firmware and see if that makes it look more like what you see in 2.8.1, either by modifying the kepub book's stylesheet to set body { -kobo-font-hinstyle: 0 !important; } (I haven't tested that) or by stripping the hinting from the font itself. Edit: This post has screenshots showing a (fairly extreme) example of how much a font can be improved by removing the hinting. Edit2: Firmware version 3.1.0 was the first that had -kobo-font-hintstyle: 1; in the stylesheet. Last edited by GeoffR; 07-17-2015 at 05:26 AM. Reason: Added link to screenshots of hinted vs unhinted Gentium Basic font.