Any way to disable font hinting in stock reader?

[mistle]

I noticed in Koreader, if I change font hinting to "off" or "native" (same result), the text renders beautifully. If I leave it on Auto (which applies hinting), the fonts appear misaligned especially along the bottom. Some letters higher than others etc.

This is also exactly how they are rendered in the stock reader, leading me to believe it's also applying auto hinting. I much prefer using the stock reader, but now that I've seen how much better text can look in Koreader, I can't go back!

Is there a way I can turn it off in the stock reader?

This post seems to suggest I can edit the Kobo stylesheet, but I couldn't figure out how to do that haha

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by mistle

I noticed in Koreader, if I change font hinting to "off" or "native" (same result), the text renders beautifully. If I leave it on Auto (which applies hinting), the fonts appear misaligned especially along the bottom. Some letters higher than others etc.

This is also exactly how they are rendered in the stock reader, leading me to believe it's also applying auto hinting. I much prefer using the stock reader, but now that I've seen how much better text can look in Koreader, I can't go back!

Is there a way I can turn it off in the stock reader?

This post seems to suggest I can edit the Kobo stylesheet, but I couldn't figure out how to do that haha

Which firmware are you running and what font are you using? If the font hinted? I find that it doesn't matter if the font is hinted or not.

[mistle]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Which firmware are you running and what font are you using? If the font hinted? I find that it doesn't matter if the font is hinted or not.

I’m using the latest firmware (not including the one that just dropped yesterday).

I find pretty much every font I try looks better in Koreader with hinting off, but as an example I use EB Garamond Absinthe, Crimson Pro, ChareInk, Goudy Old Style etc.

I’ve tried stripping all hinting using FontForge. It’s no use, as Kobo will force autohinting to all unhinted fonts and mess them up. So in a way yes it doesn’t matter if the font is hinted or not- in the stock reader it’s forced on.

I can take some screenshots if necessary. But really all one needs to do to see the difference is turn them on/off in Koreader and see how much more even they render when turned off. When turned on, they become ”wobbly”, and look identical to Kobo’s stock reader.

[Quoth]

I've never seen "wobbly" fonts in Kobo's ADE or Kepub renderers, nor on KOReader (Elipsa for a while and also the Likebook Mars). I also don't think KOReader looks better.

[DNSB]

I tried KOReader, Plato, RMSDK and the WebKit based renderer used for kepubs and did not see any "wobbly' looking fonts at the font size I normally use when reading.

[mistle]

I’ll get some screenshots as soon as I’m able.

[DNSB]

The first 3 are from KOReader, the last is from Nickel, all running on a Clara HD. The font is ChareInk.

[mistle]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I tried KOReader, Plato, RMSDK and the WebKit based renderer used for kepubs and did not see any "wobbly' looking fonts at the font size I normally use when reading.

Originally Posted by Quoth

I've never seen "wobbly" fonts in Kobo's ADE or Kepub renderers, nor on KOReader (Elipsa for a while and also the Likebook Mars). I also don't think KOReader looks better.

I made a gif: https://i.imgur.com/gKyvnid.gif


(font is EB Garamond Absinthe, but I get similar results with many other fonts also)

Notice how the "u" raises up above the top of the neighboring "o" and "s". The cross on the "t" and "f" do the same.

Along the bottom, the "f" and "h" appear to stick out lower. This is actually an optical illusion caused by the bad autohinting, where any of the letters with rounded bottoms are pixel-perfectly aligned to the bottom line. Whereas with no hints, they stick out ever so slightly below, which is the correct way to align rounded characters. To the human eye it appears correct. This is how printed text in a book behaves.

You can also see it messed up the serifs a little, have a look at how it flattens out the serif on the left stem of the "u", and the bottoms of "h" and "f".

--

I know this is subtle and perhaps nitpicky for most people, but hey we're staring at these words for hours on end. In the context of reading a whole page, all these inconsistencies sorta mesh together and make the text overall look "wonky" and misaligned.

I'm thankful I can have beautiful, print-like text in Koreader. But I really wish it was possible for Kobo to natively, y'know, render beautiful print-like text. It's kind of the one thing I expected it to do.

If anyone knows a way to get these results on the stock reader I'd be eternally thankful

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by mistle

I noticed in Koreader, if I change font hinting to "off" or "native" (same result), the text renders beautifully. If I leave it on Auto (which applies hinting), the fonts appear misaligned especially along the bottom. Some letters higher than others etc.

This is also exactly how they are rendered in the stock reader, leading me to believe it's also applying auto hinting. I much prefer using the stock reader, but now that I've seen how much better text can look in Koreader, I can't go back!

Is there a way I can turn it off in the stock reader?

This post seems to suggest I can edit the Kobo stylesheet, but I couldn't figure out how to do that haha

Can you please do me a favor and try ChareInk6SP and see what you get? This is what I use and it works for me. It is hinted. Maybe KOReader needs the fonts to be hinted and the one you are using is not hinted. The Kobo system software does not need the fonts to be hinted or not. It doesn't matter. The URL below is where you can download ChareInk6SP.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=184056

[mistle]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Can you please do me a favor and try ChareInk6SP and see what you get? This is what I use and it works for me. It is hinted. Maybe KOReader needs the fonts to be hinted and the one you are using is not hinted. The Kobo system software does not need the fonts to be hinted or not. It doesn't matter. The URL below is where you can download ChareInk6SP.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=184056

Thanks. I tried it and it seems to render quite well on the stock reader. Auto hinting is still being applied, but along with Bookerly and a few other default fonts, it’s not severe and is still aligned correctly.

You may have misinterpreted what I said though, as Koreader doesn’t require the fonts to be hinted. It gives you the choice between off, native, or auto, so you can select whichever you prefer. On many fonts, auto creates misaligned characters. Turning it off fixes the issue.

In comparison, the stock Kobo reader always has the misaligned characters (with certain fonts). If the font has native hinting, it uses it, and if it’s unhinted then it applies auto hinting. Either way, the font is wobbly. There’s no way that I know of to disable auto hinting on unhinted fonts, thus why I created this thread.

The only way I know of to have all fonts render properly is to use Koreader and disable hinting, which is what I’m doing for the time being.

(Also here’s the gif again as the previous link broke):

[Aleron Ives]

You might try asking in the kobopatch request thread.

[Sunspark]

I don't have a Kobo so I can't speak to the stock reader, but as someone who looks at fonts a lot, I can tell you that having this switch to turn hinting on and off is quite valuable.

Some fonts don't have hinting or have bad hinting, in which case, turning off hinting will activate freetype's autohinter and produce better results than trying to force pixels into a grid.

Fonts that have good hinting will do better with hinting on.

An example of a font without hinting, is this older version of Gentium (use the Book weight especially).. you will see that it looks much better with hinting turned off than with it on. https://software.sil.org/downloads/r...Basic_1102.zip

For the stock reader, it really depends on how freetype is configured.. I would say just use fonts that have hinting already applied for the stock reader.

Usually hints are found in ttf fonts and not otf, though hinting can be done in otf, but it is less common.

One you could play with in both readers is the Stix Two fonts.. they offer autohinting on both the otf and ttf, but the variable font version is unhinted. So you could try the variable font first in both readers, then take it off and put in the ttf version and see how that is. https://github.com/stipub/stixfonts/tree/master/fonts

[Colonel Cathcart]

why is this still a thing? Isn't hinting required for rendering on low DPI screens, which modern e-readers aren't?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by mistle

Thanks. I tried it and it seems to render quite well on the stock reader. Auto hinting is still being applied, but along with Bookerly and a few other default fonts, it’s not severe and is still aligned correctly.

You may have misinterpreted what I said though, as Koreader doesn’t require the fonts to be hinted. It gives you the choice between off, native, or auto, so you can select whichever you prefer. On many fonts, auto creates misaligned characters. Turning it off fixes the issue.

In comparison, the stock Kobo reader always has the misaligned characters (with certain fonts). If the font has native hinting, it uses it, and if it’s unhinted then it applies auto hinting. Either way, the font is wobbly. There’s no way that I know of to disable auto hinting on unhinted fonts, thus why I created this thread.

The only way I know of to have all fonts render properly is to use Koreader and disable hinting, which is what I’m doing for the time being.

(Also here’s the gif again as the previous link broke):

I've used ChareInk6SP with KOReader and I've not disabled hinting and it works very well.

[mistle]

Originally Posted by Sunspark

I don't have a Kobo so I can't speak to the stock reader, but as someone who looks at fonts a lot, I can tell you that having this switch to turn hinting on and off is quite valuable.

Thanks a lot for the advice. I’ll be sure to try out the suggested fonts.

Originally Posted by Colonel Cathcart

why is this still a thing? Isn't hinting required for rendering on low DPI screens, which modern e-readers aren't?

Probably just legacy settings they’ve never thought to change It is subtle, so I doubt it has been a real priority to them. Many in this thread have never noticed, for instance. But I would’ve thought an ereader company would want text on their devices to look as good as possible.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I've used ChareInk6SP with KOReader and I've not disabled hinting and it works very well.

I agree, as I said this problem only applies to certain fonts. ChareInk renders well both with/without hinting (even though I’m not partial to the font itself), as do a few other fonts I tried. But many do not, thus the conceit of the thread.