Some time back, I started this thread about creating epub books using Bangla (Bengali) fonts. Since then I've (more or less) managed to create epubs which display correctly on devices which allow the user to enable publisher formatting.
Now, I need to create books in Bangla for the Kindle. Unfortunately, Kindle does not support Bangla natively. On the several different occasions I have spoken with Amazon, I got the stock reply about how they don't currently support Bangla but are continually working to expand their reach. In other words, I'm on my own.
As far as I can see, there are a few possible solutions:
1. Amazon could provide me language support. Now we all know how improbable that is!
2. Newer Kindles support font embedding. I could take advantage of this feature to create books in a manner similar to the one I used for epub. More on this later.
3. I could install the font on my Kindle, create the ebook without font embedding and see how that goes.
4. I could distribute the epub itself along with a market / custom app for reading the epub but in this case, I can't take advantage of Amazon's ebook distribution network.
Now that I've gotten the background information out of the way, here's how far I've gotten.
I started by trying to embed the Bangla font using Calibre and generating an azw3 file. Transferred to my first gen Kindle Fire and opened it and well... let's just say it didn't display correctly. I then created the file using the latest KindleGen and faced the same problem. Then I went and bought a Kindle Fire HD and the same file displayed perfectly. (Yeah!). I'll be getting a new Kindle in a couple of days (eInk - I don't know about 2/3/4 yet but I'm assuming it will be the latest model since I ordered this one from Amazon) and will be able to test the file then but I don't see why it shouldn't work.
So I have a couple of problems. First, my old Kindle Fire doesn't render the embedded font correctly even though it supports azw3. Further, AFAIK, the older eInk models don't support azw3. So, even if I can somehow get the rendering issue sorted out - which I doubt - people with older Kindles will not be able read the book.
Do you think it would be possible to write some code (an android developer would do this, not me) so that a Kindle user could download and install the Bangla font onto their device? No hacks or jailbreaks for the end user, just a file to download from the website which will install itself. And how do you think Amazon will react to this? (I will talk to them about this, of course).
Of course, before I proceed along this line, I need to jailbreak my old Kindle Fire and install the font on my device (thereby bypassing the need for font embedding) and test. It may be that the font won't render correctly even when installed on the device.
Although there are extensive wikis for jailbreaks and font hacks, I couldn't find something for my old Kindle Fire. Any help would be appreciated.
A very long post. Just wanted to get my thoughts down and take opinions and suggestions. So please, opinions, suggestions, questions and any help would be sincerely appreciated. If this post is in the wrong section, could one of the mods please move it to the appropriate place?
Thanks
Nabodita
Now, I need to create books in Bangla for the Kindle. Unfortunately, Kindle does not support Bangla natively. On the several different occasions I have spoken with Amazon, I got the stock reply about how they don't currently support Bangla but are continually working to expand their reach. In other words, I'm on my own.
As far as I can see, there are a few possible solutions:
1. Amazon could provide me language support. Now we all know how improbable that is!
2. Newer Kindles support font embedding. I could take advantage of this feature to create books in a manner similar to the one I used for epub. More on this later.
3. I could install the font on my Kindle, create the ebook without font embedding and see how that goes.
4. I could distribute the epub itself along with a market / custom app for reading the epub but in this case, I can't take advantage of Amazon's ebook distribution network.
Now that I've gotten the background information out of the way, here's how far I've gotten.
I started by trying to embed the Bangla font using Calibre and generating an azw3 file. Transferred to my first gen Kindle Fire and opened it and well... let's just say it didn't display correctly. I then created the file using the latest KindleGen and faced the same problem. Then I went and bought a Kindle Fire HD and the same file displayed perfectly. (Yeah!). I'll be getting a new Kindle in a couple of days (eInk - I don't know about 2/3/4 yet but I'm assuming it will be the latest model since I ordered this one from Amazon) and will be able to test the file then but I don't see why it shouldn't work.
So I have a couple of problems. First, my old Kindle Fire doesn't render the embedded font correctly even though it supports azw3. Further, AFAIK, the older eInk models don't support azw3. So, even if I can somehow get the rendering issue sorted out - which I doubt - people with older Kindles will not be able read the book.
Do you think it would be possible to write some code (an android developer would do this, not me) so that a Kindle user could download and install the Bangla font onto their device? No hacks or jailbreaks for the end user, just a file to download from the website which will install itself. And how do you think Amazon will react to this? (I will talk to them about this, of course).
Of course, before I proceed along this line, I need to jailbreak my old Kindle Fire and install the font on my device (thereby bypassing the need for font embedding) and test. It may be that the font won't render correctly even when installed on the device.
Although there are extensive wikis for jailbreaks and font hacks, I couldn't find something for my old Kindle Fire. Any help would be appreciated.
A very long post. Just wanted to get my thoughts down and take opinions and suggestions. So please, opinions, suggestions, questions and any help would be sincerely appreciated. If this post is in the wrong section, could one of the mods please move it to the appropriate place?
Thanks
Nabodita