digital typography: font management - ebookcraft 2016 - champagne choquer

Font Embedding Meets

The Hero’s Journey

The Font Embedder’s

Journey

Or...

What is the hero’s journey?

The Narrative Arch of the Font Embedder’s Journey

You are a hero.

You just might not know it yet...

The Font Embedder’s Journey: The Ordinary World

The status quo, preset ebook design

The Font Embedder’s Journey: The Call to Adventure

The Font Embedder’s Journey: The Refusal of the Call

Maybe you shouldn’t embed fonts?

• Technical and admin overhead

• Added cost of premium ebook fonts

• Time spent becoming a lawyer to understand

the nuances of font licenses

• Font embedding support is notoriously spotty

• Frustration

time = $$

$$ = $$

But you’re a hero — You have to take up the call!

(Typography hero pictured above)

The Font Embedder’s Journey: Crossing the Threshold

Of course you should embed fonts:

• User experience

• Branding

• Differentiate your product

• Print and ebook consistency

• Compelling page designs

• Special character support

• See Charles Nix for more reasons

...Plus, be the hero of your ebook odyssey!

The Font Embedder’s Journey: Meeting the Mentor

#eprdctn

ebookcraft

Liz Castro & Pigs, Gourds & Wikis

EPUB Secrets

eBOUND

BISG

The Font Embedder’s Journey: Meeting the Mentor

OBrady Wan Kenobi(AKA the lovely and wise Laura Brady)

The Font Embedder’s Journey: The First Challenge

Finding the right fonts

Barriers to font embedding: • End User License Agreements (EULAs)

• Pricing

• Lack of support

• To encrypt or not

• e-reader display issues


End User License Agreements (EULAs)

• Font libraries are likely limited to use

in print books

• New licenses need to be purchased

for use in ebooks (if available)

• Most font EULA restrict “distribution”

— without using font encryption,

ebooks are considered to be

distribution

• Do not include paid fonts in ebooks,

even when using font encryption,

unless explicitly approved in the EULA

or by the font foundry directly


What to look for in font EULAs:

When purchasing a font, look for explicit language regarding ebooks:

• ebook font licensing

• Font embedding

• EPUB/ebook embedding


Be careful, even free fonts have EULAs...

Read the license thoroughly.Look for fonts that allow:

• (re)Distribution

• Extraction

• Downloads

• Modification

Open source font licenses:

• SIL International Open Font License (OFL)

• Apache License

• Creative Commons

• GNU Public License


Where to find fonts:

Open Source Fonts:

• Google Web Fonts

• League of Moveable Type

• Font Squirrel

Premium options: (require encryption)

• Fontspring

• MyFonts


What a good premium license looks like:


Font formats:

For font embedding in ebooks there are two formats to worry about: OTF and TTF.

TrueType (.ttf) Although not listed in the spec, some e-readers support the use of TrueType fonts. Widely used in print and web documents, this format also supports the Unicode range.

OpenType (.otf): This format is recommended in the epub3 spec. It is also widely used for print and web. The format was created by Adobe and Microsoft and supports the full Unicode range of characters.

The Font Embedder’s Journey: Temptation

Using fonts without a proper license

Adobe fonts can be embedded into

ebooks if you have a Creative Cloud

membership.

BUT, these fonts must be encrypted.

If you aren’t encrypting the fonts, you

need to change your typeface.

This goes with other premium, too.

The Font Embedder’s Journey: The Dark Inner Moment

This is that time when you have a font, but you contemplate whether or not it’s worth the hassle to come...

The Font Embedder’s Journey: The Final Battle

The Battle: Embedding Fonts

• From InDesign with encryption

(For premium fonts or fonts

with EULA restrictions)

• From InDesign and removing

encryption

(Open license fonts required)

• Hand coding with @font-face

(Open source license required) Wherein font rendering can be as bad as You Know Who...


Exporting from InDesign with Encryption

• When exporting a font with embeddable

fonts, InDesign encrypts (mangles) the

font files and includes an encryption.xml

file to the META-INF folder.

• It creates a “fonts” folder within the

OEBPS folder, and attaches your

encrypted font files

• It adds the font information to your CSS.

• Fonts are listed in the CSS file under @

font-face rule and in paragraph <p> style

and character <span> styles.

• It also declares all of the font files in the

content.opf file

Content.opf file:

Font media types: More confusion!

Even if your font is a TrueType font, with a .ttf extension, it is most

likely an OpenType font.

So, in the manifest, we will include the media type as

“application/vnd.ms-opentype”

If this media-type doesn’t work, try

“application/font-sfnt”

<item id=”OpenSans-Bold.ttf” href=”font/OpenSans-Bold.ttf” media-type=”application/vnd.ms-opentype” />


Removing encryption from InDesign

• Delete the encryption.xml file from the

META-INF folder.

• Delete the fonts in the Fonts folder and

replace them with original font files.

• Ensure that the @font-face CSS calls and

the Content.opf file links match the font file

names.


Adding fonts from scratch:

You will need to add fonts to the following locations

• Add the fonts to CSS using the @font-

face format

• Add the fonts to your font stacks for

different paragraph styles

• Create a “font” folder within the

OEBPS folder

• Add links to the content.opf file point-

ing to the proper location (OEBPS >

font > “Proper file name”


Fix for Apple iBooks

When embedding font for iBooks, whether encrypted or not, there is added code.

Luckily, InDesign now adds this meta-property tag for us:


Font stacks (aka graceful degradation)

• To do this, you will need to evaluate

e-reader fonts and decide which pair best to

your design.

• Add font stacks in your CSS under any class

definition

• Place fonts in descending order, with your

most desirable fonts at the start and generic

font types, such as “serif” or “sans-serif”, at

the end.


Issues (aka collateral damage)

• Font embedding is spotty, so it requires a

lot of testing across devices

• If a font isn’t licensed for EPUB, InDesign

will strip our the fonts and botch your

designs

• Some e-readers just suck—It’s not you

it’s them.


Testing, testing, 1-2-3...


Victory! Success!

The Font Embedder’s Journey: The Journey Home

You are Celebrated as the Hero You Are!

(If only in your mind)

You are a hero.

digital typography: font management - ebookcraft 2016 - champagne choquer

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