Firmware Update Kindle Firmware update 5.9.6 - Hell has frozen over (custom fonts)

[rioachim]

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/custo...deId=200529680

What’s new:

Read Arabic language books: Your Kindle e-reader now supports Arabic language books. Choose one from a selection of thousands on the Kindle store and enjoy reading Arabic content.

Read with your own fonts: You can now install your favorite fonts on your Kindle and choose one of them from the Display Settings (Aa) menu to read your eBooks. Connect your Kindle to a computer and refer to the “Read Me” file in the “fonts” folder for more information.

[jhowell]

Here is the English part of the readme file from the fonts folder:

You can now install your favorite fonts on your Kindle and choose one of them to read your eBooks.

Any font you install must be either an OpenType (OTF) or a TrueType (TTF) font. All other font formats are unsupported. Also, fonts are usually available as a font family and may consist of several files for different font styles - one each for Regular, Italic, Bold, BoldItalic, etc. For the best reading experience, we recommend you install all the files in the font family. Supported font files will have .ttf, .otf, or .ttc file extensions.

How to install fonts on your Kindle:

1. If the font is packaged into a compressed file (such as a ZIP file), uncompress the files using your favorite file extracting program

2. Copy the font files into the “fonts” folder on your Kindle

3. Disconnect your Kindle from the computer

4. You can now choose a custom font in addition to the Kindle fonts from the Display Settings (Aa) menu

Once you choose a custom font from the Display Settings (Aa) menu, your Kindle will render the book content using that font for most books. If the font is not able to be used for rendering the book’s content, your Kindle will use the default system font instead. This can happen if the font does not support the characters in the book or if the font is damaged.

Amazon respects the intellectual property of others. You are responsible for ensuring you have obtained the necessary rights and permissions to use any fonts you upload to your Kindle. By using the font upload functionality on Kindle, you agree that your use of the fonts you upload will not infringe or violate the rights of any third party, and that you will indemnify Amazon for all claims resulting from your use of the fonts you upload.

For further help, please visit: http://amzn.to/2F2DhMK

Arabic language support includes the Oxford Arabic to English dictionary and the Al-Munjid Arabic dictionary. Arabic is not available as an interface language, however there is an Arabic keyboard.

[vrf]

I quite like Bookerly, but I guess the feature is nice for all you tinkerers. Never really looked at the font that much, other than adjusting size/boldness for clarity.

[johnnyb]

Cool! Even the boldness setting works for custom fonts. All we need are new line heights to better compensate for differences in certain fonts. (and fix the azw3 cover bug!!!)
If these are the features that we're getting in x.x.x releases I'm really looking forward to 6.0.0 now

[jhowell]

From a quick test it appears that the custom fonts work in KF8 (azw3) and KFX formats, but not the in the old MOBI format.

---

I tried to test Arabic support, but so far I get a popup with "The item is not compatible with this device." when I try to select an Arabic language book.

I tried to test with the free sample for this book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0774TM745
among others.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by jhowell

I tried to test Arabic support, but so far I get a popup with "The item is not compatible with this device." when I try to select an Arabic language book.

I tested it with this Arabic MR book. After converting it to KFX, both publisher and custom fonts worked.
(Custom fonts didn't work with the AZW3 version of the same book.)

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

I tested it with this Arabic MR book. After converting it to KFX, both publisher and custom fonts worked.
(Custom fonts didn't work with the AZW3 version of the same book.)

If you get a chance, could you try to send an Amazon-published Arabic language book to your Kindle. That is what I can't get to work.

[7hir7een]

Nice! I never thought this day would come

Worth the update for being able to apply boldness to custom fonts in azw3 and kfx, at least.

[sneakyspider]

This would be perfect for me if only custom fonts and boldness levels worked with docs too.

[NullNix]

Bookerly has also been tweaked. It's a little lighter now and feels much more like a real print typeface to me. (Though obviously getting something that really looks like print requires a boost of res from 300dpi to something more like 1200. That's not coming any time soon!)

Bookerly plus a somewhat emboldened Quattrocento for me, I think. I wonder how good the OTF support is? MOAR LIGATURES

[shalym]

Originally Posted by sneakyspider

This would be perfect for me if only custom fonts and boldness levels worked with docs too.

I don't know about the custom fonts, but I just checked a doc that I added a few months ago, and the boldness levels worked for it just fine. When I checked one that I added a few years ago, it didn't work.

It looks like the one that it did work for is an .azw3, and the one that it didn't is an .azw. So I guess it's a kf8 vs mobi thing?

Shari

[vrf]

Originally Posted by shalym

It looks like the one that it did work for is an .azw3, and the one that it didn't is an .azw. So I guess it's a kf8 vs mobi thing?

Shari

Right, I don't think the boldness setting works with mobi books.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

I tested it with this Arabic MR book. After converting it to KFX, both publisher and custom fonts worked.
(Custom fonts didn't work with the AZW3 version of the same book.)

That makes sense for kfx to work only. I am assuming it has to do with RTL not being properly supported in the kf8 standard or renderer.

[rcentros]

Great news. Thanks.

[lyldz]

so now we need quality fonts pack