Favourite Fonts?

[kyrilson]

Originally Posted by jackm8

Btw, some people really don't like ITC Garamond: https://designobserver.com/article.php?id=2577

That guy really needs to relax

[xyclonei]

Rowan is a really nice, free font suitable for long reads.

[JSWolf]

Why is it that some fonts have to have some letters with a descender that are not supposed to have them such as the letter J?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Why is it that some fonts have to have some letters with a descender that are not supposed to have them such as the letter J?

For what it may be worth, quite a few fonts have descenders on capital letters with the Q and J glyphs being the most common example. You can also find them on the numbers 3, 4, 5, 7 and 9.

Then we have overshoot which is found on such glyphs as the lower case o where the bowl can extend slightly below the baseline.

In other words, Jon, it is a choice by the font designer and you can find examples that are centuries old. There is no carved on a stone slab commandment saying "Thou shall not have descenders on upper case glyphs".

Personally, I'm not that fond of them since I've run into crashing descenders where the descender overlaps with the ascender of a character in the next line so the fewer descenders the better for making my work easier.

[Thasaidon]

Originally Posted by xyclonei

Rowan is a really nice, free font suitable for long reads.

Cry God for Harry, England and St. George!

[graycyn]

Originally Posted by xyclonei

Rowan is a really nice, free font suitable for long reads.

Thank you, this looks like a font I might like, at least, I've downloaded it and will give it a tryout.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

For what it may be worth, quite a few fonts have descenders on capital letters with the Q and J glyphs being the most common example. You can also find them on the numbers 3, 4, 5, 7 and 9.

Then we have overshoot which is found on such glyphs as the lower case o where the bowl can extend slightly below the baseline.

In other words, Jon, it is a choice by the font designer and you can find examples that are centuries old. There is no carved on a stone slab commandment saying "Thou shall not have descenders on upper case glyphs".

Personally, I'm not that fond of them since I've run into crashing descenders where the descender overlaps with the ascender of a character in the next line so the fewer descenders the better for making my work easier.

No extra descenders is one reason I like Charis SIL. (aka ChareInk6SP). I'm not a fan of the descender and ascender hitting each other.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I'm not a fan of the descender and ascender hitting each other.

I agree that I am not a fan of descender crashing. OTOH, since even your favoured Charis SIL font has a descender on the capital Q not to mention the usual suspects for the lower case letters (g, j, p, q and y) so there is still a chance of crashing descenders if the line width is set too narrow.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I agree that I am not a fan of descender crashing. OTOH, since even your favoured Charis SIL font has a descender on the capital Q not to mention the usual suspects for the lower case letters (g, j, p, q and y) so there is still a chance of crashing descenders if the line width is set too narrow.

True. I have upped the line height I use slightly so they just tough or almost touch.

[lumping-sugar66]

Serif

1. EB Garamond
2. Georgia
3. ChareInk6

I don't do sans-serif. I usually start with something from the list above and around 5-10% into the book I place a new sans-serif substitute in. Here are the substitutes for when the embedded CSS demands it (only based on context):

Sans-serif subtitutes

• Quattrocentro(works especially well when used for texts/emails/personal notes. Faux italic is not half bad.)
• Courier New(Computer systems, errors, labels etc)
• Ubuntu(only applicable to extreme sci-fi, like Harlan Ellison stories)

---

My favorite is by far EB Garamond, but it needs personalization.

I haven't been able to use it on default reader of Nickel where there are tons of rendering issues. A few weeks ago I decided to give KOReader a try and with the customizations it offers, EB Garamond is back on the menu. It looks so good; but without KOReader, it's impossible.

Also worth mentioning that it doesn't work with all books, like sci-fi. But when it works, it's perfect. Reading The Wager with EB Garamond was an absolute bliss.

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by lumping-sugar66

Also worth mentioning that it doesn't work with all books, like sci-fi. But when it works, it's perfect. Reading The Wager with EB Garamond was an absolute bliss.

What does 'doesn't work' mean to you in this context? To me, a font either looks good, or it doesn't. What I'm reading with it has nothing to do with that.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by mbovenka

What does 'doesn't work' mean to you in this context? To me, a font either looks good, or it doesn't. What I'm reading with it has nothing to do with that.

He's saying that when you add weight to the font via Nickel, it doesn't look good. But when you add weight through KOReader, EB Garamond looks OK.

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

He's saying that when you add weight to the font via Nickel, it doesn't look good. But when you add weight through KOReader, EB Garamond looks OK.

OK, I get that. But I reacted to his claim that it didn't work for him when reading SciFi, but did when reading something else. I don't see the connection there, unless he switches readers to do that.

[lumping-sugar66]

Originally Posted by mbovenka

OK, I get that. But I reacted to his claim that it didn't work for him when reading SciFi, but did when reading something else. I don't see the connection there, unless he switches readers to do that.

I meant it like it doesn't fit in with the flow of the book. The "doesn't work with Sci-Fi" comment wasn't anything technical in this case, it just doesn't work for me to read a Sci-Fi novel with Garamond; it feels weird.

Also true what @JSWolf says. Without KOReader, and without the small adjustments made available by its reader (kerning, weight, contrast, hints etc. and most importantly line height), I can't make Garamond look good on Nickel.

[JSWolf]

IMHO, I don't like Gramamond on eInk. A number of eBooks come with Adobe Garamond Pro embedded and I strip it out.