Better custom font sizes on Sony Reader devices

by Matt Sephton — Thu, 07 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Below are details of a script to generate custom CSS to make sure custom fonts all appear at similar sizes when they are used as the display fonts on Sony Readers running PRS+ custom firmware. Without this script certain custom fonts will appear much bigger or smaller than others.

I use this with my PRS-650, but it probably applies to most Sony Readers and perhaps some other eReaders. Get in touch if you have an idea how it can apply to other eReaders.

Source Code

Installation

Requirements:

php
python
pip

Dependencies:

font-line

Useful incantations:

sudo -H python -m ensurepip
sudo -H pip install font-line

Location

Script should be alongside the folders of font families in /READER/fonts

Usage

Run from the command line without any arguments.

Output

One custom CSS file for each font family is written to /READER/database/system/PRSPlus/epub/

How does it work?

Using the python tool font-line I get the sum of Ascender+Descender from the font metrics for each family. Dividing 1 by that number normalises the font size by making larger fonts slightly smaller, and smaller fonts slightly larger. The script finally writes the new size information into the CSS in the expected format at the correct location.

Cease & Desist: The Designers Republic

by Matt Sephton — Tue, 17 Jun 1997 00:00:00 +0000

A letter I received from The Designers Republic after creating a font inspired by their work. They chose to order a cease and desist, rather than fostering creativity.

Matt Sephton created an original font called Block Out–a techno font that can still be found here. He had used Fontographer. It was, as he put it, influenced by the tDR font in the Wipeout series of games. He placed a free truetype font on his web site, but was confronted with a threatening letter from tDR and was forced to take down the free .ttf font from his site. They claimed their font 6x6 (even though Matt’s is based on a 7x7 grid) was what he was trying to sell. Another instance of corporate bullying. —Luc Devroye, from luc.devroye.org/fonts-72415.html

My font was drawn completely from scratch using Fontographer 4.1, so I find it perplexing that glyphs I had created straight from my own imagination were the same as those in the apparently identical font. I offered my font as a free download on my website, under the concept of Shareware which encouraged others to also share the font for free, and if anybody felt like sending a donation they could do. As you might expect, this is a bit of a hippy thing to do and nobody ever donated anything! And I never did hear from the Head of the Department of Computer Science.

An archived copy of the font can be found on this CD-ROM from 2007.

Get Info: #fonts