|
View Poll Results: Do you want more support for non-western/international text ebooks? | |||
Yes, I would like support for non-western text ebooks. | 19 | 95.00% | |
No, I would not like this. | 1 | 5.00% | |
I don't care. I'm indifferent. | 0 | 0% | |
Voters: 20. You may not vote on this poll |
|
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
09-14-2009, 09:23 AM | #1 |
Connoisseur
Posts: 79
Karma: 42
Join Date: Sep 2009
Device: sony reader touch (prs-600)
|
Support for non-western languages?
Honestly, i'm quite disappointed that a company would release a product that doesn't support--at least displaying--any language. Why can't the sony readers display asian, arabic, or other non-western text? I think kindle has the same limitation. Frankly, it blows my mind. Not only does it limit us readers to western ebooks only, but limits the possible distribution of that company's product.
well, anyway, my question is: how many people would want support for any language? for example, supporting UTF-16 (which is allowed in the epub standard). |
09-14-2009, 09:50 AM | #2 |
Wizard
Posts: 3,442
Karma: 300001
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Belgium
Device: PRS-500/505/700, Kindle, Cybook Gen3, Words Gear
|
Unicode is supported, it's the installed fonts that are missing necessary glyphs. If you make EPUB files with embedded fonts (or refer external fonts from CSS), they display nicely.
|
Advert | |
|
09-14-2009, 10:03 AM | #3 |
Connoisseur
Posts: 79
Karma: 42
Join Date: Sep 2009
Device: sony reader touch (prs-600)
|
i see. perhaps the reader should have a unicode font built in, though. i made a japanese book using feedbooks.com, and the epub version won't display. of course, i can't embed a font on a book i publish there. (i could insert it myself later... but that's not the point.) international stuff should just work.
|
09-14-2009, 10:10 AM | #4 |
reader
Posts: 6,975
Karma: 5183568
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Mississippi, USA
Device: Kindle 3, Kobo Glo HD
|
The thread What's the default ADE font? discusses the font provided by Adobe. It is possible for the device vendor to change the default font, or extend it to other languages. Hanlin has just done so for the V3, the EZ Reader firmware page includes "Adobe language package for Chinese, Japanese & Korean" although I have not tried it.
|
09-14-2009, 10:15 AM | #5 |
Member
Posts: 12
Karma: 19
Join Date: Sep 2009
Device: prs600
|
I can't understand the Sony's strategy, even the Japanese is not supported by the portable reader !!?? PDF file is the only way to solve this problem now.
|
Advert | |
|
09-14-2009, 10:23 AM | #6 |
Wizard
Posts: 2,981
Karma: 11862367
Join Date: Apr 2008
Device: Sony Reader PRS-T2
|
Just to refresh my memory - did LRFs have this problem on the PRS line? I assume the libre didn't..
|
09-14-2009, 10:26 AM | #7 |
Wizard
Posts: 3,442
Karma: 300001
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Belgium
Device: PRS-500/505/700, Kindle, Cybook Gen3, Words Gear
|
So far they only released on Western-language markets, so they didn't have to worry about other languages. Maybe they don't want to pay for the font license, or don't want it to be too big (for space or speed reasons), or something else.
|
09-14-2009, 10:41 AM | #8 |
Connoisseur
Posts: 79
Karma: 42
Join Date: Sep 2009
Device: sony reader touch (prs-600)
|
that's probably true. even so, i'd wish they'd have the foresight to imagine (1) readers in western countries sometimes want to read non-western texts, (2) if they just make it international from the start, isn't it that much easier to enter other markets in the future? plus there's the whole ebay and buying-on-the-internets thing.
|
09-14-2009, 10:49 AM | #9 | |
eBook Enthusiast
Posts: 85,544
Karma: 93383043
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: UK
Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6
|
Quote:
Both ePub and PDF allow you to use Japanese, etc, and both file formats allow you to include whatever fonts are necessary to display the text. |
|
Tags |
language, limited |
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
What languages will Kindle 3 support besides Russian, Greek and CJK? | kacir | Amazon Kindle | 7 | 02-17-2011 01:45 PM |
Support for other languages? | Matth3w | Calibre | 8 | 04-15-2009 02:25 AM |
Calibre support for Right-to-Left languages | kiklop74 | Calibre | 7 | 04-11-2009 02:02 PM |
PRS-500 Can you support other languages? | PeterO | Sony Reader Dev Corner | 1 | 10-23-2007 06:35 AM |
Foreign languages support? | ToxicAngel | Sony Reader | 15 | 11-21-2006 10:20 AM |