How to embed fonts in ePub after Calibre

[fiery]

This is my simple step by step guide how to embed fonts in epub files after Calibre convertion. For me the most important advantage is that ADE and my reader device finally show readable Cyrillic letters instead of ???.

1. When you convert with Calibre turn on "No default cover" available at EPUB Output!

2. Open the epub file using 7-zip (or other zip utility). Add the fonts bellow and edit the files directly in the archive through the 7-zip explorer (you may need to change the default editor for .css/.opf/.xhtml files to WordPad for example (I use SciTE)).

---------------
3. Add the following Serif fonts to the epub file. Fonts are available at C:\Program Files\Calibre2\resources\fonts\liberation:
---------------
LiberationSerif-Regular.ttf
LiberationSerif-Italic.ttf
LiberationSerif-BoldItalic.ttf
LiberationSerif-Bold.ttf

---------------
4. content.opf - insert the <item... lines after the <manifest>
---------------
<manifest>
<item href="LiberationSerif-Regular.ttf" media-type="application/octet-stream" id="id1"/>
<item href="LiberationSerif-Italic.ttf" media-type="application/octet-stream" id="id2"/>
<item href="LiberationSerif-BoldItalic.ttf" media-type="application/octet-stream" id="id3"/>
<item href="LiberationSerif-Bold.ttf" media-type="application/octet-stream" id="id4"/>


---------------
5. stylesheet.css - insert the following text after the first line
---------------
@font-face {
font-style: italic;
font-family: 'Liberation', serif, sans-serif;
font-weight: normal;
src: url(LiberationSerif-Italic.ttf);
}
@font-face {
font-style: normal;
font-family: 'Liberation', serif, sans-serif;
font-weight: normal;
src: url(LiberationSerif-Regular.ttf);
}
@font-face {
font-style: italic;
font-family: 'Liberation', serif, sans-serif;
font-weight: bold;
src: url(LiberationSerif-BoldItalic.ttf);
}
@font-face {
font-style: normal;
font-family: 'Liberation', serif, sans-serif;
font-weight: bold;
src: url(LiberationSerif-Bold.ttf);
}



-----------------------------------------------------------------
Cybook Opus users - if you want to use these fonts only on your device - first copy all Liberation fonts to your Cybook Opus Fonts folder. Then edit the stylesheet.css file (or enter it at Calibre -> Look & Feel -> External CSS field):
----------------
1. stylesheet.css - insert the following text after the first line
----------------
@font-face {
font-style: italic;
font-family: 'Liberation', serif, sans-serif;
font-weight: normal;
src: url(res:///mnt/fat/Fonts/LiberationSerif-Italic.ttf);
}
@font-face {
font-style: normal;
font-family: 'Liberation', serif, sans-serif;
font-weight: normal;
src: url(res:///mnt/fat/Fonts/LiberationSerif-Regular.ttf);
}
@font-face {
font-style: italic;
font-family: 'Liberation', serif, sans-serif;
font-weight: bold;
src: url(res:///mnt/fat/Fonts/LiberationSerif-BoldItalic.ttf);
}
@font-face {
font-style: normal;
font-family: 'Liberation', serif, sans-serif;
font-weight: bold;
src: url(res:///mnt/fat/Fonts/LiberationSerif-Bold.ttf);
}

[wallcraft]

For embedded fonts:

Many ePubs with embedded fonts do not include them in the manifest. I don't know what the standard says, but it is presumably safe to skip step 4.

Steps 3,4,5 assume the fonts go in the same folder as the content.opf and stylesheet.css. I have more often seen the fonts in their own sub-folder of this folder. If this is called "Fonts" then use (step 5):
src: url(Fonts/LiberationSerif-Italic.ttf);


For on-device user fonts:

This also works on Sonys (ePub custom Fonts on 700, 505, 300, 600) and Hanlins ( Fonts and Epub - What works on Sony, Works for Pocket Pro too!). All that differs between the Cybooks, Sonys and Hanlins is the location of the user provided font directory (e.g. SD card vs internal memory) and how it is named in the src: line.

[brewt]

Liked the plan here, but wow, am I ever doing this wrong.

I can get it to embed it so that the calibre viewer can see it, but not adobe's. Even after re-installing adobe. Nor Sony.
Zulu doesn't do it, neither does fbreader (but I'm not sure they handle embedded fonts anyway).

Ideas? I keep hoping epub will be come more universalized in the viewings, but the different readers are vastly different in their interpretations of pretty much anything I produce - maybe I'm just bad at it.

-bjc

[pdurrant]

This file doesn't pass epubcheck, but none of the errors are significant for your problem.

Your @font-face CSS for Perpetua and Broadway seem to be over-ridden by file-specific CSS, which no longer defines the URL for the font.

Your BROADW.TFF font file is missing from the manifest

I believe that in @font-face declarations, non-generic font-family: attributes should be enclosed in "", as should the path in the url part of the src attribute. See the example in

http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-CSS2-1...font-selection

Perhaps fixing these problem will improve consistency of rendering

Originally Posted by brewt

Liked the plan here, but wow, am I ever doing this wrong.

I can get it to embed it so that the calibre viewer can see it, but not adobe's. Even after re-installing adobe. Nor Sony.
Zulu doesn't do it, neither does fbreader (but I'm not sure they handle embedded fonts anyway).

Ideas? I keep hoping epub will be come more universalized in the viewings, but the different readers are vastly different in their interpretations of pretty much anything I produce - maybe I'm just bad at it.

-bjc

[FizzyWater]

If I made epubs like this, and later put them on a new reader that doesn't have a "Fonts" folder (or have the fonts saved into it), would the ebooks be unreadable, or would it simply display them in the default fonts?

[pdurrant]

The books being discussed here have the fonts inside the ePub, so should display the font on any ePub reader that handles custom fonts.

If you made an ePub with references to fonts inside a particular reader's fonts folder, one a reader without the fonts installed the ePub reader should just use its default fonts.

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

If I made epubs like this, and later put them on a new reader that doesn't have a "Fonts" folder (or have the fonts saved into it), would the ebooks be unreadable, or would it simply display them in the default fonts?

[brewt]

Thanks for lookin'. God, mybad on typo.

In my original html, the styles and @fontface calls were in a real css, not at the top of the html - did calibre re-embed? (Built with Word, hand-excised styles references)

Not in original html, in calibre-rendered html's:

@page { margin-bottom: 5.000000pt; margin-top: 5.000000pt; }
@font-face {
font-family: Tahoma;
panose-1: 2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4
}

@font-face {
font-family: "Ocean Sans Std Bold Ext"
}

@font-face {
font-family: Inconsolata
}

@font-face {
font-family: Perpetua
}

@font-face {
font-family: Broadway
}

Also, in the calibre-built epub's css, there are calibre styles that I didn't have in the original.....

<link rel="Stylesheet" type="text/css" media="all" href="styles.css"/>
<meta content="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"/><link href="stylesheet.css" type="text/css"

.calibre4 {
display: block;
font-family: Perpetua;
font-size: 1.125em;
font-weight: bold;
margin-bottom: 3pt;
margin-left: 0;
margin-right: 0;
margin-top: 12pt;
page-break-after: avoid
}
etc

Are these just the styles I had in my original css that I didn't use?

...understanding fading.....

-bjc

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

The books being discussed here have the fonts inside the ePub, so should display the font on any ePub reader that handles custom fonts.

So sorry! I just read on another thread to include the generic "serif" and/or "sanserif" in the font declaration so that if the font you declare is unavailable, the book will use the default serif or sanserif (depending on which you declare).

[padman]

Originally Posted by fiery

2. Open the epub file using 7-zip (or other zip utility). Add the fonts bellow and edit the files directly in the archive through the 7-zip explorer (you may need to change the default editor for .css/.opf/.xhtml files to WordPad for example (I use SciTE)).

@fiery,
Thanks for your guide. You're suggesting editing files through an archive editor. Can you first unzip the epub, make the changes and then compile again? I couldn't find any tool that would make this compilation.

[pdurrant]

Yes, you can unzip, edit and then zip again.

When zipping, the mimetype file must be the first file in the zip, and it must be zipped uncompressed. The other files must follow.

I wrote an Applescript for Mac OS X that does this zipping. I'm sure a batch file for Windows could be written too.

Originally Posted by padman

@fiery,
Thanks for your guide. You're suggesting editing files through an archive editor. Can you first unzip the epub, make the changes and then compile again? I couldn't find any tool that would make this compilation.

[fiery]

@padman,
Instead of editing files directly in the epub file, you can change its extension from .epub to .zip and then extract the files. On Windows XP and later you can do this very easily through the explorer contextual menu command "Extract All". After file editing, zip first the mimetype file (use the explorer "Send to" -> "Compressed (zipped) folder" command). Then add all other files in the zip (just drag and drop them over the zip file). Finally, change the .zip extension to .epub.

The epub format requires that mimetype file should be put first without compression (don't worry Windows will not compress it due to its size) in the epub file. However, ADE as well as my device read epub files even if the mimetype file is not first. In fact, if you do direct editing through the 7-zip utility, it will put edited files above mimetype file and an epub verification would complain about this. So, if you want to produce a strict epub file you should unzip it, edit files and zip it again as explained above.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Yes, you can unzip, edit and then zip again.

When zipping, the mimetype file must be the first file in the zip, and it must be zipped uncompressed. The other files must follow.

I wrote an Applescript for Mac OS X that does this zipping. I'm sure a batch file for Windows could be written too.

What I do is unzip the ePub, and then make the changes and put back just the files that I've changed. Works quite easily.

[Valloric]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What I do is unzip the ePub, and then make the changes and put back just the files that I've changed. Works quite easily.

If the mimetype file is not the first file and/or is not uncompressed, your epub might not work in all epub-supporting software. Calibre, ADE and Sigil can still handle this, but your epub is still non-conformant and may not work elsewhere.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Valloric

If the mimetype file is not the first file and/or is not uncompressed, your epub might not work in all epub-supporting software. Calibre, ADE and Sigil can still handle this, but your epub is still non-conformant and may not work elsewhere.

I am using WinRAR to do this. So when I update the changed files, does it changes things enough to be out of spec?

[pdurrant]

I don't know - but a quick run through epubcheck will tell you.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I am using WinRAR to do this. So when I update the changed files, does it changes things enough to be out of spec?