Are Creative Cloud/Indesign EPub Embedded Fonts Broken on Kindle IOS?

Question

I am publishing an eBook with source code, and I want to use an Emigre typeface to improve readability on phone devices. It's bundled with Creative Cloud so I have created an ePub test.

Fonts working:

• Kindle for MacOS

• Kindle Paperwhite

• Apple Books

Fonts NOT working:

• Kindle Previewer 3 on MacOS

• Kindle iOS, sideloaded via .mobi

• Kindle iOS, sideloaded via .epub

1. Is it possible I'm not seeing the fonts due to the preview process, e.g., the is it possible the fonts will start working after I go through the final Kindle publishing process?

2. Is it possible that Indesign's Creative Cloud font-embedding process is the problem, and I should instead just manually bundle my fonts (licensed for distribution via ePub) by manually updating the ePub with non-obfuscated OTF files?

My goal is to have reliable font support for kindle on IOS, Android, MacOS and Windows: I'm not so concerned about other platforms.

Answer 1

(I assume you have tested it with epubcheck with no error messages. the online epub validator is here: https://www.ebookit.com/tools/bp/Bo/eBookIt/epub-validator).

I can't help you specifically on this question, but I can give you some information based upon experience:

Kindle Previewer generally should show embedded fonts. In fact, I've been told that it is more reliable than sideloading/emailing the file.

Don't worry about .mobi anymore because Amazon no longer accepts it -- and it is not required for emailing personal docs.

Although it took me a while to figure out, I've had some success with using embedded fonts. If you want to unzip one of my epub files, download it from here to see how I do it. https://www.ghostlypopulations.com/2012/09/three-times-time-mini-ebook-released-free-short-story-collection/ I use the method described by Jimmy Panoz here: https://github.com/JayPanoz/Soma/wiki/How-to-embed-fonts

You're pointing out the issue with ID -- how it links to and obfuscates fonts. I can't really help on that. I would also test on non-Kindle reading systems with your epub file (ie. iBooks, Adobe Digital Editions and Google Play Books) to verify that the font is successfully embedded. Perhaps the problem is with Kindle device compatibility and not with epub compatibility.

Hope this helps.