Formatting fails in certain fonts?

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Bex
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Joined: Tue Feb 03, 2015 5:26 pm

Formatting fails in certain fonts?

Post by Bex »

Hi there

I'm new to Atlantis and I've been trying to format an ebook which contains the fonts Mongolian Baiti and Iskoola Pota. My problem is that bold and italics don't show up in the resulting epub. (Viewed in adobe.) I've tried out other fonts (more commonplace ones like calibri and Times New Roman) and can see all the formatting showing up correctly. So now I'm wondering if it's something I've somehow missed, or if it's standard that certain fonts don't "take" formatting very well? Anyone else experienced this?
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admin
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Post by admin »

As I understand, you embed fonts in your EPUB. Probably your Mongolian fonts do not include bold and italic glyphs. When you view your source document in Windows, bold and italic glyphs can be automatically "generated" by Windows. But glyph substitution for missing glyphs might work differently in your eReader.
Bex
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Joined: Tue Feb 03, 2015 5:26 pm

Post by Bex »

Aha, that's interesting. Thanks for your help.
DaleDe
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Post by DaleDe »

Generally when you include fonts you need to include separate fonts for bold and italic and possible even bold italic if you use them. These variations are generally not in the same file as the main font.

Here is an example:

@font-face {
font-family: "Fontin";
font-weight: normal;
font-style: normal;
src: url(../Fonts/Fontin-Regular.ttf);
}
@font-face {
font-family: "Fontin";
font-weight: bold;
font-style: normal;
src: url(../Fonts/Fontin-Bold.ttf);
}
@font-face {
font-family: "Fontin";
font-weight: normal;
font-style: italic;
src: url(../Fonts/Fontin-Italic.ttf);
}

Dale
Bex
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Joined: Tue Feb 03, 2015 5:26 pm

Post by Bex »

I'm a bit of a technophobe so bear with me... do you mean I should choose a different fort just for those words which are italicised or bolded?
Robert
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Joined: Fri Aug 15, 2003 8:27 pm

Post by Robert »

As Admin suggested, if you want your ePub files to be displayed with their italic and bold characters, you need to use fonts that include italic and bold glyphs. As I understand things, “Mongolian Baiti Normal” is so named because it only includes “normal” glyphs. In other words, it includes neither bold nor italic glyphs. Similar thing with “Iskoola Pota”. It only includes “normal” and “bold” glyphs (at least when it is available on Windows systems). So you could not have ePub files displaying with italic characters if they were designed with “Iskoola Pota”.
Note that most of the fonts available on Windows systems are copyrighted. You cannot redistribute them freely. This is why you should not “embed” such fonts in ePub files if you intend to distribute or sell your eBooks.
To play safe, you should use fonts that are free of rights and redistributable. Please have a look at this thread.
HTH.
Cheers,
Robert
Bex
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Feb 03, 2015 5:26 pm

Post by Bex »

Thanks Robert, that's a very good point! I'll take a look at that thread.
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