PRS-T1 Guide to change system fonts on PRS T1

[giosa]

I've decided to write a short guide on how I've made PRS T1 show book titles, TOC, bookmarks, pages in browser correctly in Georgian Unicode. I think this info might be useful to others as well. So here we go:

The outline of the process is as follows: PRS T1 fonts partition is CRAMFS this means that it's read only one can not just copy and paste font files in fonts directory even in rooted system (of course if you're not root you don't even see systems partition). That's why we need to extract fonts CRAMFS image to the reader partition that's accessible from a PC (I've done it on Windows 7 machine) then copy extracted CRAMFS image to PC (you need to have cygwin installed on PC) unpack the image with cramfsck command change the font repack back with mkcramfs command and write back to PRS T1 flash the modifed fonts image.

1. Run Terminal emullator on PRS T1 type

su

and $ promt will change to # now you have superuser priviledge and can use the following command

dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk2p5 of=/mnt/sdcard/mmcblk2p5.img

to extract fonts CRAMFS to READER partition of PRS T1

2. Move mmcblk2p5.img to root of C:\ directory on your PC, from Start/Run run CMD cd to cygwin/bin directory and type

cramfsck -x d:\ /cygdrive/c/mmcblk2p5.img

I assume your second windows partiotion is d: if not change to whatever yours is. On D:\ you will see 44 font files extracted.

3. Now you need to identify font file which you want to replace. Droid sans is responsible for the book titles, TOC and stuff. I've chosen to replace Droid Sand Thai with Georgian font. I've got Droid Sans Georgian ttf from Android SDK on my PC C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\platforms\android-15\data\fonts this is the path on my system. It comes with Andorid 4.0, there are other fonts as well like Armenian for example.
Idea is that you have to rename not only file name to the font you want to use, to the file name of font you decided to replace, but also font name. I've done this with Font Creator v6.5 you can use any other tool of your liking. This step is important!!! if you make mistake here you'll brick you device! Don't mistype font name. Once you've done this step make mmcblk2p5 folder on your d:\ drive and put all 44 fonts including modified one to that folder.

4. From CMD promt run this command

mkcramfs d:\mmcblk2p5 mmcblk2p5.img

make sure your CMD promt is in correct directory it has to be cygwin/bin. Now you have modified CRAMFS fonts partition ready to be written to PRS T1 flash. The new file must be smaller in size than original!

5. Copy your new mmcblk2p5.img to sdcard on PRS T1 (it's READER partition, which is mounted when you connect to PC in data transfer mode)
Open Terminal emulator on your read and write the following command

dd if=/mnt/sdcard/mmcblk2p5.img of=/dev/block/mmcblk2p5 bs=1024

of course make sure you have su # promt. You can do this command in recovery mode and then the code will be different. I've done with this code in normal mode.
Wait for a minute and terminal will signal you how much data it written, now you can restart you're reader. AND no more ugly ????????? in squres!!

Disclaimer! This low level operation on system files, potentially you can render your device nonoperational. Do above instruction on your own risk! I'm not responsible for damage you could make to your device.

Credits go to Porukan/Boroda, snarkophilus and j0534ng31 they have made this. I'm a compete noob

[eminarcissus]

Thx for your instruction.
One question here. Does sd rescue image have mmcblk2p5 covered in?
I wanna to give it a try but just afraid of brick the device and could not fix with sd rescue method.

[ever2047]

Originally Posted by eminarcissus

Thx for your instruction.
One question here. Does sd rescue image have mmcblk2p5 covered in?
I wanna to give it a try but just afraid of brick the device and could not fix with sd rescue method.

It seems there are only mmcblk2p9.img & mmcblk2p10.img in the rescue image.
I think you must back up the original mmcblk2p5.img
Recovery mode may be more powerful.

I'm a noob too.

[Mark Nord]

Thanks for this,

I'm atm not into fiddling with my T1, but may it be possible to use the
mount cmd to test the new compiled cramfs-img before writing it back?

Using a command like:

mount -t cramfs -o loop,ro /mnt/sdcard/newfont.img /ebook/fonts/

[giosa]

Originally Posted by eminarcissus

One question here. Does sd rescue image have mmcblk2p5 covered in?

I think no.

Originally Posted by ever2047

It seems there are only mmcblk2p9.img & mmcblk2p10.img in the rescue image.
I think you must back up the original mmcblk2p5.img
Recovery mode may be more powerful.

I agree.

[giosa]

Originally Posted by Mark Nord

Thanks for this,

I'm atm not into fiddling with my T1, but may it be possible to use the
mount cmd to test the new compiled cramfs-img before writing it back?

Using a command like:

mount -t cramfs -o loop,ro /mnt/sdcard/newfont.img /ebook/fonts/

Sorry I don't know, maybe more experienced guys will replay.

[j0534ng31]

Originally Posted by giosa

Sorry I don't know, maybe more experienced guys will replay.

Yes, it can be done like this...


But I think you cannot mount it to /ebook/fonts... anyway, you can:

1- Mount the font image to a new directory (for instance, /cache/testfonts)

2- Bind mount it (mount -o bind /cache/testfonts /ebook/fonts)

Originally Posted by giosa

5. Copy your new mmcblk2p5.img to sdcard on PRS T1 (it's READER partition, which is mounted when you connect to PC in data transfer mode)
Open Terminal emulator on your read and write the following command

dd if=/mnt/sdcard/mmcblk2p5.img of=/dev/block/mmcblk2p5 bs=1024

of course make sure you have su # promt. You can do this command in recovery mode and then the code will be different. I've done with this code in normal mode.

Just two little notes:

1- You'd better do this in 'recovery mode'...

2- Remember to add the 'dd' option that Boroda has told you ('conv=notrunc')... It can be very useful, just in case something goes wrong.

[giosa]

Originally Posted by j0534ng31

2- Remember to add the 'dd' option that Boroda has told you ('conv=notrunc')... It can be very useful, just in case something goes wrong.

I've added it but i got something like "disabled" I don't remember exactly. Maybe because I've done it in normal mode.

[vietchovui]

I get this error:

c:\cygwin\bin>cramfsck -x d:\ /cygdrive/c/mmcblk2p5.img
'cramfsck' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

[j0534ng31]

Originally Posted by vietchovui

I get this error:

c:\cygwin\bin>cramfsck -x d:\ /cygdrive/c/mmcblk2p5.img
'cramfsck' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

I can't remember the exact name, but you have to install the cramfs tools package from cygwin setup

[giosa]

Originally Posted by vietchovui

I get this error:

c:\cygwin\bin>cramfsck -x d:\ /cygdrive/c/mmcblk2p5.img
'cramfsck' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

Find attached original PRS T1 mmcblk2p5.img content zipped. So that you can skip that step.

But you still need mkcramfs so you need cygwin

[vietchovui]

Originally Posted by giosa

Find attached original PRS T1 mmcblk2p5.img content zipped. So that you can skip that step.

But you still need mkcramfs so you need cygwin

Thanks alot. I've downloaded cygwin (with cramfs) over the night (files size more than 5giga). I'm able now to extract mmcblk2p5.img.
But after re-read carefully the step 3 in your guide, I worry about possibility of bricking my T1 because I have to use also Font Creator, a program that is unfamiliar to me. So, could you please help me bypass this step by providing more info about the img that you made?
- Does Droid Georgian font support unicode UTF8? (as I want to display correctly Vietnamese in ToC too). I've googled by found no info about this font;
- If yes, could you upload the img in with fonts were replaced so that I can simply go to step 5.
Thanks,

[giosa]

Originally Posted by vietchovui

- Does Droid Georgian font support unicode UTF8? (as I want to display correctly Vietnamese in ToC too). I've googled by found no info about this font;
- If yes, could you upload the img in with fonts were replaced so that I can simply go to step 5.
Thanks,

DroidSans Georgian support unicode but it has only Georgian glyphs, if you have Vietnamese angalog attach to to your message and I'll make img for you.

[vietchovui]

Attached files are some fonts that support Vietnamese characters (zip file) and a sample of Vietnamese text (file word). Please have a look and help me. Thank you!
If i made any mistake in changing system font files, is there a change to recover the T1 by using SDcard rescue or restore set?

[giosa]

Originally Posted by vietchovui

Attached files are some fonts that support Vietnamese characters (zip file) and a sample of Vietnamese text (file word). Please have a look and help me. Thank you!
If i made any mistake in changing system font files, is there a change to recover the T1 by using SDcard rescue or restore set?

Do you want one of the reader fonts change also or just system?

I've made img for you. If you want read in vietnamese from stock reader change original font to ReallyNo2LTW1G.