Kindle and Fonts

[Lafayette]

To make my Kindle E-book appear nicer and more appropriate for the fantasy genre I have embedded the font 'LaBrit' in my MS Word 2010 document. I use this font for the title page and the chapter headings. For the main text I use Times New Roman. However when I go to Amazon.com to check it out 'LaBrit' is not there. Instead I see a Times New Roman or some similar font and to my eyes it looks tacky and awful.

Can someone tell me what's going on and offer some suggestions?

By the way, from the research I've done 'LaBrit' is a free font with no restrictions.

 

[tinkerdan]

Read this::
How to choose typography for ebooks -
Not sure how much authority this person has; however it does seem to match my experience with the fonts.

 

[-K2-]

Could you possibly use an 'image' instead of a font for where you want that font to be?

(That's a question... I know nothing about e-publishing).

K2

 

[Ogma]

I haven't used it myself yet but I've heard great things about Vellum. It might be able to do it easily.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I know other members have used images to ensure their titles and chapter headings are better represented in a different font to the Kindle/Fire defaults. However, I've only briefly experimented with this and not found a good working image size as yet.

 

[tinkerdan]

The key to images is to always be certain the image is 300 pixels per inch.

I know other members have used images to ensure their titles and chapter headings are better represented in a different font to the Kindle/Fire defaults. However, I've only briefly experimented with this and not found a good working image size as yet.

Format Your eBook

kdp.amazon.com

 

[Brian G Turner]

The problem I've had it sizing - an initial attempt to replace book title and chapter headings with images failed badly because they were too small. If no one else volunteers optimum sizes, then I'll return with the right information once I've figured it out myself.

 

[tinkerdan]

You should be able to make the page size of your template as the image size because that's what they are trying to fit it to. Then be sure you have the margin included in the image and size the image inside that margin. and be certain the image is 300 ppi.
When you make the image make it the width minus the margins wide and then drop it into the page.

This is similar to how you do the image for the cover only in that case you have a bleed area around the image so that they have enough extra for positioning and trimming.



from Amazon guidlines

9.4.2 Image Size and Quality Standards
Images must meet the minimum quality standard of 300 ppi for the intended display size. The minimum standard for a full-page image in a book after allowing for margins, running heads, page numbers, and captions is an image size of 4" x 6". At 300 ppi, this image must be a minimum of 1200 x 1800 pixels. The following terms will define specific use cases and provide examples of how to meet this standard.

https://kindlegen.s3.amazonaws.com/AmazonKindlePublishingGuidelines.pdf

 

[Lafayette]

You should be able to make the page size of your template as the image size because that's what they are trying to fit it to. Then be sure you have the margin included in the image and size the image inside that margin. and be certain the image is 300 ppi.
When you make the image make it the width minus the margins wide and then drop it into the page.

This is similar to how you do the image for the cover only in that case you have a bleed area around the image so that they have enough extra for positioning and trimming.



from Amazon guidlines

9.4.2 Image Size and Quality Standards
Images must meet the minimum quality standard of 300 ppi for the intended display size. The minimum standard for a full-page image in a book after allowing for margins, running heads, page numbers, and captions is an image size of 4" x 6". At 300 ppi, this image must be a minimum of 1200 x 1800 pixels. The following terms will define specific use cases and provide examples of how to meet this standard.

https://kindlegen.s3.amazonaws.com/AmazonKindlePublishingGuidelines.pdf

Will I have to do this for each chapter heading?

 

[-K2-]

Will I have to do this for each chapter heading?

If they're different, yes... yet it won't be that difficult unless you're adding custom images with each and so on. You can probably whip these up in a half-hour. That text I applied above took all of 3-5 minutes including finding-downloading-unzipping-installing the font, using my very old Photodeluxe Business Edition (Basically PS-1.0) and ensuring I had the right background color for the forum.

K2

 

[tinkerdan]

As stated above yes.

Will I have to do this for each chapter heading?

That's the only way to get a font they don't use; plus the user has the ability to change fonts and once again the only way to maintain a specific font would be through an image.