Firmware 4.34.20097

[MGlitch]

On Kobos site there’s a “feedback” button on the far right hand side. Note I think it’s disabled on mobile browsers, and any Adblock software seems to hide it automatically. I found it using Microsoft edge or whatever MS is calling their browser these days. From there you should have general feedback, self help, and customer care. You’d want general feedback.

From there pick buy an ereader, no, the ereader, and then type what the issue is in the text field.

I don’t know if the first three things matter but they are the closest I can find. You can also do the customer care option.

I did both back when the Forma launched and had some issues with the whole slide to unlock thing and requiring a passcode. The issue was pretty quickly fast. I’d done the customer care first got someone with a brain who understood I was reporting an obvious bug, and said they’d escalate it on their end but I should also do the feedback thing.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Sure. But if the font was built with ligatures and ligatures have been enabled by the user with 'Optimize Legibility' and those ligatures still don't work, that is a bug regardless.

Don't get me wrong, I think Kobo should fix it. I'm just pointing out Jon thinking the font not showing on devices is a bug, even if the font is also bugged to not show ligatures.

Basically as it stands there are possibly two issues with the font

1) Ligatures not working despite ligatures being present in the font files

2) Rakuten Serif / Sans both not showing up on some devices for some users (though this does need more data and confirmation)

Both are bugs, both should be fixed. Jon was implying only the first one was important, and then once that was fixed the second could be considered worrying about.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

On Kobos site there’s a “feedback” button on the far right hand side.

Thanks man. Adblock was doing what it does. Found the button and reported the issue. I think I'll leave adblock off for Kobo.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

No, the ligatures do not work. I read after posting last night and ffi doesn't work. Neither does fl or any of the other ones I know to look for.

As proof, see the attached images of the word 'insufficient' displayed in Rakuten Serif, Rakuten Sans (someone mentioned ligatures work there, they don't) Literata Book and Bookerly.

I think you may have reached a wrong conclusion from those images. Not all fonts have 'ffi' ligatures which

• merge the dot on the 'i' into the second 'f'
• display the second 'f' taller than the first 'f'

Some fonts have "meh" ligatures which don't look much different from the standard component chars. Rakuten Serif has "meh" ligatures (just my opinion, of course ) See screenshot from the Regular file (unicode fb00-fb04) as displayed by the FontDrop! site. The ligatures in the Bold font file look very similar (other than the weight).

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

I think you may have reached a wrong conclusion from those images. Not all fonts have 'ffi' ligatures which

• merge the dot on the 'i' into the second 'f'
• display the second 'f' taller than the first 'f'

Some fonts have "meh" ligatures which don't look much different from the standard component chars. Rakuten Serif has "meh" ligatures (just my opinion, of course ) See screenshot from the Regular file (unicode fb00-fb04) as displayed by the FontDrop! site. The ligatures in the Bold font file look very similar (other than the weight).

In that case, the 'meh' ligatures are about as good as having none at all.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

In that case, the 'meh' ligatures are about as good as having none at all.

Can't argue with that

[JSWolf]

You could send Kobo a tweet or call them.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You could send Kobo a tweet or call them.

I used the feedback button mentioned earlier. But jackie is right. The ligatures in this font do work. They just kinda suck to me. I'll just use something else.

[Deobulakenyo]

Someone gave me a font tester epub here at MR. That is a good way to check ligatures, kerning, etc. Right?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Deobulakenyo

Someone gave me a font tester epub here at MR. That is a good way to check ligatures, kerning, etc. Right?

Kerning doesn't seem to be working with both ePub and KePub. The font has the kerning tables, but somehow they are not properly linked (I think that's the correct term).

[Quoth]

Maybe because MS, Google, Apple and Amazon have all either designed or commissioned fonts Rakuten wanted to join the club?
At 167 dpi (and 72 dpi to 133 dpi of PC screens, maybe also for the subpixel addressing such as Cleartype) you need specially designed fonts? But do you really need to design fonts for 220+ dpi and 300 dpi mono eink with 14 in between grey levels (no colour screen sub pixel addressing)?

I've not even bothered to look at these fonts as I read mostly on "publisher font" and replace that using Calibre if it's obnoxious, if Georgia doesn't suit.

I know on the 167 dpi Kindles one struggles with font at smaller sizes, but on 300 dpi?
Even the original H2O and Nia don't need special fonts.
The Sony PRS-350 is only 800 x 600 but because it's only 5" any font looks far better than on 800 x 600 6" Kindle or the 9.7" DXG at the same size. The DXG is particularly ghastly due to fewer built in than KK3 and no font embedding.

So I don't think these two fonts are a significant upgrade. The Swipe down, which includes Notebooks and works on Notebooks (Sage & Elipsa) and more bug free is the good bits. Seems safe upgrade from 4.32x version.

[rtiangha]

The funny thing is that the Rakuten fonts have been around for over two years now but we're only hearing about them now because they decided to distribute them to the public by including them in their products. They didn't have to do that.

https://www.itsnicethat.com/news/dal...-design-050820

So while the font isn't really to my tastes, I know it is for others and I appreciate them including it. I just hope they fix the Regular Serif variant. Just because it passes a font validator, it doesn't mean it isn't bugged (i.e. missing or incorrect tables) at the same time.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Maybe because MS, Google, Apple and Amazon have all either designed or commissioned fonts Rakuten wanted to join the club?

Kobo at least has had the unique Nickel font available for years.

[texnology84]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Thanks!
Should be on menu too as new gestures (and gestures other than page turn) are non-intuitive.

Well, works. The interesting thing is that it's so far the sole Notebook/eBook integration. Recently opened Notebooks are in the the 3 recent other things, but Notebooks are not in the Books list.

Nor sadly is there any keyboard on Notebooks or Copy/paste from eBook or annotation to Notebooks (or from Notebook to annotation).

And the swipe down works in an Advanced Notebook to get back to an eBook.
Interesting.
So you now can hop back & forth between and eBook and Advanced Notebook. My Notebooks are organised by Alphabetic, so this is a lot less taps to get to a Notebook not on first page.

More useful if you use Notebooks than just for ebooks. I have Home Screen off, so 2 taps gets list of recently reading ebooks, the default My Books.

Thanks for sharing this info, Quoth! I’ve been hunting around all over because, like you, I think this is a major improvement for Sage/Elipsa’s notebook to ebook functionality and could imagine a reason they did this feature. I made a video about this update
to show it off since it is still rolling out, and I dropped a link to your comment from my video describing because you’re literally the only person I found discussing this detail!! So, thank you for helping my mind finally quiet down about this.

I’ll also note that I use Pocket integration for reading articles and these are included in the Recently Opened menu as well. Should be interesting to see how the logic works out as one juggles between item types…I hadn’t tested too long just yet.

[rtiangha]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Kobo at least has had the unique Nickel font available for years.

And Kobo Kakugo and Mincho designed by Morisawa Inc. too.