Glo Side-loaded fonts decay

[roger64]

Hi

The title may looks surprising but this is what happens.

I use the factory 2.4.0 firmware. I side-loaded some perfectly good looking fonts (otf and ttf), using carefully the -Regular, -Italic, -Bold and -BodItalic suffixes requested by Kobo. Everything was perfect. I looked several books with them.

As I enjoy changing fonts, I remarked later that all these previous sideloaded fonts display now systematically a strange new heavy-weighted bold instead of italic.

I suspect that this phenomenon is due by some internal Kobo tinkering. Am I alone to see this?

FYI I never use Kepubs.

[ShellShock]

I don't think you are going to get much interest by raising a bug report for an out-of-date firmware. I suggest you upgrade to 2.5.1 and see if you still get the problem?

[DNSB]

If you power cycle your Glo, does the problem go away for a while?

Regards,
David

[roger64]

Well, this firmware has been replaced two weeks ago only. OK I'll update.


@DNSB. On/Off. Still the same: Ugly Bold instead of Italics for Adobe Caslon Pro, Linux Libertine O

[jlynton]

The same happens with epubs using the kobo preinstalled caecilia font on the glo with 2.5.1 firmware

[ShellShock]

This is a known problem: Some Kobo fonts display bold instead italics in epubs. Kobo do not seem to be interested in fixing this, as they say we should be using kepubs instead. Also some custom fonts have a similar problem in epubs; this is usually because the font file names are wrong, or the font names in the files are wrong. Please see here for more info: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=211222.

[taming]

Originally Posted by ShellShock

This is a known problem: Some Kobo fonts display bold instead italics in epubs. Kobo do not seem to be interested in fixing this, as they say we should be using kepubs instead.

I have not ever heard anyone from Kobo say this. What I do know is that they are actively working on this issue. The worst offender, from my perspective, has been their own font, Kobo Nickel.

[Ripplinger]

What I found so far digging around was that the <em> tag displays bold for the majority of fonts, or bold italics on a few fonts. Once I edited the tags to <i> for italics (very quick using search and replace in Sigil), all italics now show as italics with all fonts.

[roger64]

Hi

An annoying known problem indeed.

I've updated to 2.5.1 (d5bb1c9bbd 4/22/13). Problem is still on.
I use i tags (not em tags) and real EPUBs ( not Kepub).

What's puzzling is that I have seem italics perfectly displayed on several books with these same side-loaded fonts, and then on a latter reading, the italics turned to faulty bold.

The fonts are the one I downloaded from official site. I did not modify anything inside. I just changed the suffix according to Kobo requests. Here is a joint example of one, initially perfectly good and which turned sour.

I think this problem could be repeated. Try it, wait some days, and try it again.

[ShellShock]

Originally Posted by taming

I have not ever heard anyone from Kobo say this. What I do know is that they are actively working on this issue. The worst offender, from my perspective, has been their own font, Kobo Nickel.

This the reply I had from Kobo support when I raised the problem with them in March.

We have not been able to test it in the Nickel font through the file you sent us as it does not come up in the list of font options with the documents you send us. However when we tested the file you sent us in the font call "Avenir," we were able to recreate the problem.

Unfortunately, we do not support texts outside of what the Kobo Glo comes with. To ensure sideloaded content is viewed without problems, you need to view it with the "Document Default" test.

When you either create your own documents or sideload documents from other sources and the Document default is not selected, we cannot guarantee that the font will behave properly or that you would see the text as it should appear.

We understand that with previous version this might have worked, however, the software has been re-written for optimal usage.

We are not sure why you are sideloading your Kobo books. However, if you can provide us with a concrete example from a Kobo-purchased book that we can test, we will able to let our development team know of the discrepancy with the italic font.

The eBook would have to be sent to us with a specific example on a page where the problem is appearing so that we can test accordingly.

We apologize for the inconvenience. We are aware that this is not the response you would want to receive. We will try our best to provide you with a solution.

Essentially they are saying that they only support epubs with the Document Default font. I appreciate that their left hand may not know what there right hand is doing: the support desk may not be aware that the developers are working on a fix. But this has been a problem for several months now, and it can't be that hard to fix; I had the same problem with one of my side-loaded fonts until I fixed the naming and now it works fine. Kobo just need to do the same with their own internal fonts.

[taming]

I think they are saying that when a user cobbles together an epub or gets it from non-kobo sources and then sideloads it onto the device, where it will go through either the Adobe or the Kobo renderer, they cannot guarantee that the fonts will perform as well as a book that has been coded to spec.

I have yet to see a problem with epubs purchased from any legitimate epub retailer, other than those problems that are evident in kobo-purchased books ,too. If I buy an epub from Kobo, it is no better than the same book purchased from Sony, or Google, or B&N. All of these may very well be better than a book downloaded from torrent sites, manipulated in calibre, created by someone for private use, etc.

[ShellShock]

When I side-load an ebook purchased from Kobo, the Kobo Nickel font (for example) will display italics using the bold font. These are not cobbled together epubs, these are books supplied by Kobo, using a Kobo font.

You can see the problem for yourself using the attached files. The KEPub Font Tester - Ann Onymous.kepub.epub will be treated by the device as a kepub and will be rendered using the Kobo engine; italics will be displayed properly by the Kobo Nickel font. The EPub Font Tester - Ann Onymous.epub will be rendered instead using the Adobe engine, and italics are displayed as bold. The only differences in these two files are the file extension and the title in the meta-data.

This has been a bug since at least firmware 2.4.0. I assume there was a change in the Abode renderer which broke some of the built-in fonts, and some side-loaded fonts. It seems the Adobe code became a lot stricter about font naming, so that if the font files names are not correct, or the font names in the files are not correct, it is no longer able to find the correct font. It should be simple for Kobo to fix this by making sure their fonts are named correctly.

[John F]

Originally Posted by ShellShock

...

This has been a bug since firmware 2.4.0. ...

I think it goes back further than that. I believe it goes back to 2.0.

[ShellShock]

Originally Posted by John F

I think it goes back further than that. I believe it goes back to 2.0.

Could be...I skipped 2.0.

[roger64]

Thanks for your comments.

I have a question: If I rename the epub as kepub and tweak some metadata, will it work properly at last?

Interesting statement from Kobo:

.../...When you either create your own documents or sideload documents from other sources and the Document default is not selected, we cannot guarantee that the font will behave properly or that you would see the text as it should appear.

We understand that with previous version this might have worked, however, the software has been re-written for optimal usage.../...

optimal seems to have a strange meaning in Canada...

Do they expect customers to believe that kepubs are an enhanced sort of epub, and, for this reason, they keep some artificial hurdles specially for epubs... ?