Fat fonts for Kindle KPW2

Katsunami · 10-07-2013, 07:59 PM

It has been reported that the Kindle PW2 does not support the USE_ALT_FONTS trick anymore. My crystal ball has told me that Amazon will remove this feature/bug from the old Paperwhite as well, when backporting the new KPW2 features. (I destroyed the crystal ball as a punishment for showing me such bad news.)

I know myself: I want the latest firmware and features, but I also DON'T want to give up my very own DejaVu Serif Fat font.

I just can't read well with the built-in fonts anymore. They are all wrong in some way. Too small and thin (Baskerville), fat and ugly (Helvetica, Caecilia and C. Condensed), bad readability (Futura). The only one I like is Palatino, and that one is still a bit thin and has too much line height.

I like DejaVu Serif, but it's too thin on the KPW. I've added weight to it to make it fatter, to be used with the USE_ALT_FONTS trick. It renders *really* bad on screen. It seems LCD's don't take well to just blatantly adding some weight to a font. It renders fine on the KPW, however. I don't know how it will look on other readers.

If it can't be uploaded to the Kindle anymore, it must be embedded in the book, and to do that, it has to be installed on the computer. Therefore I have adjusted the DejaVu Serif Fat in such a way that it can be installed *alongside* the normal DejaVu Serif, even if you have it installed. This was not possible with the previous versions; they'd overwrite the original DejaVu Serif.

On Windows, just select the 4 fonts, right-click, select "Install", and reboot.
Alternative Method in Windows: Drop the fonts into C:\Windows\Fonts, and reboot.
On the Mac, use whatever way of installation method Apple has invented.
On Linux, just google "Font Installation", and do some How-To stuff for 3 days.

Now you will be able to embed the font into your Kindle books when converting; just set it under "Look & Feel" in Calibre. If your source format is AZW3, you'll need to convert from AZW3 to AZW3. After uploading to the Kindle, choose "Publisher Font".

The font is in the attachment. Tomorrow I'll add Georgia Fat and Verdana Fat (which, for some reason, looks a lot better than Helvetica), as I had some requests for those fonts before.

Obligatory small print, intentionally hard to read: This font has a trial period of 15 days, after which your computer and Kindle will explode if you still use it. To prevent this and keep using the font, please donate a book of great value to my library. (The font might also kill kittens, but that is not my responsibility. Please file a bug report to the creators of the original DejaVu Serif.)

aceflor · 10-08-2013, 01:51 AM

Sweet... K for you.
Don´t have kittens, so potentially safe..or ?

Josieb1 · 10-08-2013, 05:47 AM

"Now you will be able to embed the font into your Kindle books when converting; just set it under "Look & Feel" in Calibre. If your source format is AZW3, you'll need to convert from AZW3 to AZW3. After uploading to the Kindle, choose "Publisher Font".

Does this work with mobi books as well? I've never embedded fonts before so I don't really know what to do.

Katsunami · 10-08-2013, 05:54 AM

Set the font in Look & Feel, and convert to mobi. Then test the resulting book. I can't test it myself now because I'm not at my own computer.

It will work for a book converted to AZW3, regardless of input format.

booklover6 · 10-08-2013, 07:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Katsunami

If it can't be uploaded to the Kindle anymore, it must be embedded in the book, and to do that, it has to be installed on the computer.

You don't have to do all that. Download the zip file, unzip it. Go to Calibre, Preferences, Common options, Embed font family, look at the bottom right where is says "add fonts" navigate to the ttf files, and add them. I just tested it with this font and it worked fine.

Katsunami · 10-08-2013, 08:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by booklover6

You don't have to do all that. Download the zip file, unzip it. Go to Calibre, Preferences, Common options, Embed font family, look at the bottom right where is says "add fonts" navigate to the ttf files, and add them. I just tested it with this font and it worked fine.

Thanks. I've never tried that option; I just assumed it installed fonts onto the computer. If a font is added using that option, I assume it will appear in the list to the left. How can it be removed from there?

BTW: I've just created the Verdana E-Ink and Georgia E-Ink fonts. As the originals are copyrighted, I can't upload them. If you want these, send me a PM. (You could actually install FontForge, add some weight, and change the font's names, as they are supplied with many or maybe even all operating systems.)

Also, I've renamed "DejaVu Serif Fat" to DejaVu E-Ink" in the first post.

booklover6 · 10-08-2013, 12:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Thanks. I've never tried that option; I just assumed it installed fonts onto the computer. If a font is added using that option, I assume it will appear in the list to the left. How can it be removed from there?

That I'd like to know, as I would love to remove all the fonts that came with Calibre that I'll never use.

Katsunami · 10-08-2013, 12:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by booklover6

That I'd like to know, as I would love to remove all the fonts that came with Calibre that I'll never use.

Does Calibre come with fonts?

Never noticed that. I have the default Windows stuff, the DejaVu fonts, and then a whole bunch of special fonts used by LilyPond (sheet music typesetter), LaTeX (text typesetter), and Fritz (chess program). And, of course, a lot of stuff for other languages, so I don't get weird blocks instead of characters when I'm looking something up that has to do with China/Japan/Korea and so on.

I never noticed that Calibre installs any fonts, and if it has the option to add fonts without installing them onto the computer, it should also provide an option to remove them somehow.

HarryT · 10-08-2013, 01:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by booklover6

That I'd like to know, as I would love to remove all the fonts that came with Calibre that I'll never use.

Calibre doesn't come with any fonts (to the best of my knowledge). It simply shows you the fonts that you have installed on your PC.

ixtab · 10-08-2013, 01:14 PM

Code:

$ pwd
/opt/calibre
$ find resources/fonts/
resources/fonts/
resources/fonts/liberation
resources/fonts/liberation/LiberationSans-Italic.ttf
resources/fonts/liberation/LiberationMono-Bold.ttf
resources/fonts/liberation/LiberationSans-Regular.ttf
resources/fonts/liberation/LiberationSerif-Regular.ttf
resources/fonts/liberation/LiberationSans-BoldItalic.ttf
resources/fonts/liberation/LiberationMono-BoldItalic.ttf
resources/fonts/liberation/LiberationMono-Italic.ttf
resources/fonts/liberation/LiberationSans-Bold.ttf
resources/fonts/liberation/LiberationSerif-Italic.ttf
resources/fonts/liberation/LiberationSerif-BoldItalic.ttf
resources/fonts/liberation/LiberationMono-Regular.ttf
resources/fonts/liberation/LiberationSerif-Bold.ttf
resources/fonts/calibreSymbols.otf

That's a standard calibre installation on Linux, I assume it's roughly similar on Windows.

PS: User settings are in ~/.config/calibre on Linux, so I guess that's where user-installed fonts would end up.

HarryT · 10-08-2013, 01:15 PM

I stand corrected - thanks

. Can't say I've ever noticed them.

Mike76 · 10-08-2013, 01:21 PM

On Ubuntu Linux there is a .config/calibre/fonts directory that contains all the fonts added by 'Add fonts' command. I'm sure there must be something similar under Windows.

Katsunami · 10-08-2013, 01:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike76

On Ubuntu Linux there is a .config/calibre/fonts directory that contains all the fonts added by 'Add fonts' command. I'm sure there must be something similar under Windows.

The config folder. Why didn't I look there?

On Windows, it's here (where it should be):

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\calibre\fonts

Katsunami · 10-08-2013, 01:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ixtab

<snip>
That's a standard calibre installation on Linux, I assume it's roughly similar on Windows.

PS: User settings are in ~/.config/calibre on Linux, so I guess that's where user-installed fonts would end up.

Ow, hehe. Liberation. That's why I never noticed them. I have two programs that come with Liberation too, and before that, I actually installed it myself anyway

booklover6 · 10-08-2013, 01:44 PM

Yes, Calibre comes with a long list of fonts to use.

No, I don't see any way to remove them.

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10-08-2013, 01:51 AM	#2
aceflor Wizard Posts: 3,472 Karma: 48036360 Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: where the sun lives, or so they say Device: Pocketbook Era, Pocketbook Inkpad 4, Kobo Libra 2, Kindle Scribe	Sweet... K for you. Don´t have kittens, so potentially safe..or ?

10-08-2013, 05:47 AM	#3
Josieb1 Grand Sorcerer Posts: 5,052 Karma: 18018738 Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: UK Device: Kindle Scribe, PW SE & Kindle 2022, Kobo Libra 2	"Now you will be able to embed the font into your Kindle books when converting; just set it under "Look & Feel" in Calibre. If your source format is AZW3, you'll need to convert from AZW3 to AZW3. After uploading to the Kindle, choose "Publisher Font". Does this work with mobi books as well? I've never embedded fonts before so I don't really know what to do.

10-08-2013, 05:54 AM	#4
Katsunami Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,111 Karma: 34000001 Join Date: Mar 2008 Device: KPW1, KA1	Set the font in Look & Feel, and convert to mobi. Then test the resulting book. I can't test it myself now because I'm not at my own computer. It will work for a book converted to AZW3, regardless of input format.

10-08-2013, 01:15 PM	#11
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,544 Karma: 93383043 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	I stand corrected - thanks . Can't say I've ever noticed them.

10-08-2013, 01:21 PM	#12
Mike76 Connoisseur Posts: 69 Karma: 35064 Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: Hungary Device: Kindle Paperwhite 2013, Kobo Mini, iPad Mini	On Ubuntu Linux there is a .config/calibre/fonts directory that contains all the fonts added by 'Add fonts' command. I'm sure there must be something similar under Windows.

10-08-2013, 01:44 PM	#15
booklover6 Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,541 Karma: 14008730 Join Date: May 2008 Location: PA (USA) Device: Kobo Clara, 2E, Libre 1, PW4, PW5, 2022 Kindle, Kobo Libre Colour	Yes, Calibre comes with a long list of fonts to use. No, I don't see any way to remove them.

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