CHM to Epub Hebrew / Greek Font Issues

[fraChristopher]

Dear All,

I have a Kobo Aura (no HD), and I'm trying to convert a CHM of a Hebrew grammar book I need for school (it came with my bible software). Although it converts, and looks perfect in the Calibre viewer, as soon as I upload it to my Kobo, it refuses to display the Hebrew and Greek with the proper characters. I've tried side-loading a better Unicode Font, Gentium Plus, and that doesn't work. I also tried embedding the font on the conversion process. No go.

I've included both the original .CHM file (which I had to rename as a pdf to upload it), and the converted Epub that Calibre gave me.

If anyone could help, I'd be really grateful!

Thanks,

-fraChristopher

[pdurrant]

[Note that Gesenius's Hebrew Grammar was written in the early 1800s, and the English translation was published in 1910, and the translator died in 1931.

It is in the public domain almost everywhere.]

[Tex2002ans]

In the EPUB you attached, you are missing the @font-face declarations. Add this code to the top of the CSS file:

@font-face {
font-family: Bwgrkl;
font-style: normal;
font-weight: normal;
src:url("fonts/Bwgrkl.ttf");
}

@font-face {
font-family: BWLexs;
font-style: normal;
font-weight: normal;
src:url("fonts/BWLexs.ttf");
}

@font-face {
font-family: BwHebb;
font-style: normal;
font-weight: normal;
src:url("fonts/Bwhebb.ttf");
}

What this says in English is pretty much: "If there is a reference to the font BwHebb, make sure to use the font file located at fonts/Bwhebb.ttf"...

After I added that CSS to the EPUB, it allowed me to read the Hebrew/Greek on Mantano Reader (I didn't test it on any other readers/devices).

Originally Posted by fraChristopher

I've tried side-loading a better Unicode Font, Gentium Plus, and that doesn't work.

Those Unicode fonts wouldn't work, because this document is not storing the characters as proper Unicode. It seems like the BibleWorks fonts map normal ASCII characters -> Hebrew/Greek characters.

So something like this in the HTML, uses their Greek font "Bwgrkl":

<span class="calibre14">y</span>

displays as "ψ"

<span class="calibre15">Mwca,</span>

displays as "Μωχά"

This sort of mapping is absolutely unmaintainable in the long-run, not very accessible, or user friendly.

I looked up a few BibleWorks -> Unicode converters, but they all seemed to be ancient Word macros:

http://duncanjohnson.ca/Student-Writ...e-unicode.html

Maybe there is a much more robust tool out there that has been developed since then to convert these specific fonts to their Unicode equivalents...