What part of epub is encrypted?

[Begemot]

Is there an EASY way to determine what is causing epub to show as encrypted?

Editing my 3rd book and run into this strange encryption problem.

Draft2digital distribution service thinks that my 3rd epub is encrypted and will not publish on Kobo (Barnes and ibooks are fine). Previous 2 epubs I did not have this problem.

File originally created in inDesign for print version.

Original inDesign file export -> edited in Sigil -> well formed epub check passed -> external epubcheck passed.

In order to pass warnings in epubcheck I added Title and Creator in content.opf .

There are some 10 fonts embedded. Possibly encryption check is caused by one of those?

What else can I check?

[JSWolf]

The problem is that the fonts are obfuscated because of InDesign. You can use Sigil to remove the obfuscation from the fonts. I believe you can right click on the fonts and do so from one of the menus.

[dwig]

If InDesign has done its job properly it will have obfuscated (encrypted) any embedded fonts that are copyrighted. This is necessary to allow the resulting ebook to be distributed legally. Removing the obfuscation would make it illegal to distribute the book as you would be illegally distributing the fonts. You might consider reworking the book in Id using fonts that are free to distribute.

[Notjohn]

I suppose I'm unadventurous, but I think the ideal is to have NO embedded font. Indeed, I am even beginning to move away from Courier/monospace and letting everything go to the default.

[dwig]

Originally Posted by Notjohn

I suppose I'm unadventurous, but I think the ideal is to have NO embedded font. Indeed, I am even beginning to move away from Courier/monospace and letting everything go to the default.

I agree, KISS when at all possible.

[JSWolf]

The question is, do you have a license to use these fonts in your eBook or are they free for use in an eBook?

Also, using Calibre, you can subset the font instead of obfuscating. Once subset, the font is not going to be useful outside of that eBook because any characters not used by the font have been removed. But, one thing you'll need to check is if the fonts have enough weight for an eInk screen. Too many embedded fonts don't and that can make the eBook hard to read.

[dwig]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

... But, one thing you'll need to check is if the fonts have enough weight for an eInk screen. Too many embedded fonts don't and that can make the eBook hard to read.

Quite correct. When converting a file created for a print version to an ebook version, ALL font decisions need to be reviewed and mostly changed.

Fonts designed for headline, titling, or other display use generally work poorly for body copy. Likewise, fonts designed for high resolution ink-on-paper reproduction frequently render poorly on electronic displays. Highly stressed fonts (think: Bodoni with its large difference between the thick and thin strokes) fail on electronic displays no matter what weight is chosen. You need fonts that are less stressed.

A second consideration that must be taken into account is that many ereaders will not use the embedded fonts. Not all formats support embedded fonts and many ereading software/firmware either ignores embedded fonts or offers user options to use or avoid the fonts. You need to be certain that the ebook displays well when the embedded fonts are ignored and the ereaders default font(s) is used.

[JSWolf]

A commonly embedded font that's much too light is Adobe Garamond. It's much too light for eInk and it's still too light for LCD (i.e. iPad or iPhone).

The book The Martian used some free fonts that are just awful. The fonts used as Free Mono, Free Sans, and Free Serif. All of those are just really badly made fonts that are very light. They don't work with eInk or LCD. They don't even work for print.

The problem is that embedded fonts (most of the time) are not checked to make sure they look OK on the screens they will be used with. You need to test the fonts on eInk, a tablet like an iPad, and a cell phone like an iPhone. If they don't work on any of those screens, then the font needs to be scrapped and a different font found to be used (if you actually need a font embedded in this case).

I did recently see a book where Gentium SIL was embedded in case the default font was missing some extended character. The problem was that were this was used didn't look good. It would have been better to use this font for the entire word and not just the one character.

Also, there are issues with Kindles and embedded fonts. Kindles by default do not show embedded fonts. You have to go to the font menu and select Publisher Font (stuipd as sin idea on Amazon's part to make font embedding work that way instead of defaulting to Publisher Font when font(s) are embedded). Also, for the older devices that do not handle KF8, they only get Mobi and Mobi doesn't handle fonts at all. And then if you are not one of the big publishers, there's all kinds of problems getting the book on Amazon with the fonts in tact.

So unless you need the font(s) embedded, don't do it. It just doesn't work in most cases.

[Begemot]

Thanks guys!

I would much rather change the fonts to free to distribute unecrypted versions that seems the legal route to take. (Not a fan of DRM)

In fact, I do not really need the embedded fonts at all in this particular epub, removing them is a bit of a pain though.

Need to remove them from fonts directory that is easy, also easy is removing them from CSS(just remove @font-face)

Finally there also references to fonts in the .xhtml files. such as

<p class="MinionPro-12-5-14">&nbsp;</p>

That is PIA

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by Begemot

... also easy is removing them from CSS(just remove @font-face)

Finally there also references to fonts in the .xhtml files. such as

<p class="MinionPro-12-5-14">&nbsp;</p>

That is PIA

You need to update the CSS to remove font-family properties that refer to the removed fonts.

The classes in the xhtml file are just references to the CSS. Despite the name they do not actually refer to the MinionPro font. You could leave them in place.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Begemot

Thanks guys!

I would much rather change the fonts to free to distribute unecrypted versions that seems the legal route to take. (Not a fan of DRM)

In fact, I do not really need the embedded fonts at all in this particular epub, removing them is a bit of a pain though.

Need to remove them from fonts directory that is easy, also easy is removing them from CSS(just remove @font-face)

Finally there also references to fonts in the .xhtml files. such as

<p class="MinionPro-12-5-14">&nbsp;</p>

That is PIA

Actually, removing the fonts is very easy. I use Calibre's editor. You will want to set the preferences so metadata is not updated when you open the eBook.

To set the preferences, go to the Edit menu and then Preferences. Select Integration with Calibre and then make sure that Update metadata embedded in the book when opening is not checked.

Now to edit the eBook. Delete the fonts. Go to the CSS and delete the @font-face parts. Then edit the CSS to remove the classes (or edit as needed) that select the fonts. Next, go to the Tools menu and select Remove unused CSS Rules. That will remove any classes in the CSS not used and any classes in the XHTML not used. While you are at it, you might as well also go back to the Tools menu and select Compress images losslessly so the crud in the images will be removed for slightly smaller images without any loss of quality or size.Now Run check to check for any errors and if none, save and run the ePub through ePubcheck. If that comes out with no errors, you are done.