The title pretty much says it all, and I figured I’d go ahead and ask the question, and if the answer is no, well, I suppose you could consider this a feature request. My bad if it is, indeed, already a feature.
Basically, I know it’s possible to embed custom fonts within an ePub file, so that it always displays in that font when it’s opened in a reader app. But what I want to know is, does Scrivener support doing this, and if so, how? Or, if so, is it automatic? And if Scrivener can’t do this, is there an app out there that makes it easy to do?
No, Scrivener doesn’t support this, and there are no plans to add it in the near future, either. There are both legal and technical issues here:
Legal: In order to embed a font in an .epub, you (the end user) must own the necessary rights to use that font. This is a bit of a fuzzy area. Fonts can be embedded in certain documents - PDF documents and .docx documents, for instance - but it would take a lot of reverse-engineering to get them out again. But an .epub file is just a .zip file, so anyone could just unzip the file and get the fonts - thus this could be considered distribution and not be covered by standard licences. The .epub 3.0 format (and Adobe) supports font obfuscation, but not all readers do yet and this gets a little complicated. It’s much better to avoid this altogether and to use only fonts with open licences (but it would be up to the end-user to ensure this), which leads on to technical issues.
Technical: the .epub spec generally requires OpenType (.otf) fonts, but the Mac uses many different font types - .otf, .ttf, .ttc and so on (just take a look in your /Library/Fonts directory). So only a subset of the fonts on your system would be available for embedding. Thus Scrivener would not be able to present you with the standard Fonts panel (which shows you all fonts on the system) and would instead, for .epub format, have to search for all .otf fonts on your system somehow and only present you with those. But again, it would have to rely on you ensuring that you have the necessary rights to embed these fonts in your e-books.
Given the above (along with the headache it would be to implement this!), I tend to think that it’s much better to avoid font embedding and leave this to the professional publishers, who have legal teams and access to font libraries.
You can read more about font embedding here, though:
Then what if we need to set apart certain areas of text in a book compiled for paperback? For instance, notes one character writes to another, or a typewritten letter text…or text messages a character gets on her phone…
I loved using a typewriter font for a typed letter portion the character is reading, and handwriting fonts for when one character leaves a note to another…but I realize the issues with fonts and embedding…(I have subscription to adobe for my fonts)…so I guess that means i would have to use certain allowable fonts. Is there a list of those? I have thousands of fonts on my machine…so are we talking COURIER for typewriter font, and Calibri for text messages? And NOT being able to use a hand font for handwritten?
Granted, print books have more DESIGN aspects. (like graphics near the chapter headings, flourishes /drop caps/text wrap around images in the space before the chapter headings, chapters always landing on the recto page, graphics here and there as separators, and so on.)
And yes, i know Scriv is not MEANT for setting up print books, but i find it’s ten times easier than the other programs I’ve tried (Jutoh, InDesign, and (gag) WORD, to name a few. )
The same can be said for digital book setup…the whole thing can be created start to finish in Scriv, and compiled out to a clean file. I almost always get the message “No issues found” from epub checkers. That’s high praise, and Scrivener is overlooked as a legit epublishing software…and even though everyone says you can’t do this or that to make a print book with it (like formatting running headers that don’t appear in front and back matter pages) I have actually done this. I figured out how. And I believe my future cleanup and reformatting of my print book files in Scriv will only take me an hour or two, after I finish the last few tweaks in the compile screens. SO…
I said all that to say this: There are many naysayers out there who tell me how limited it is, but Scrivener has the potential to be the alpha/omega for Indie authors. (I even use it for databases, as i used to with various notebook apps. It’s awesome for this).
Addendum: I did find one typewriter font so far that does appear properly on the page, which i think means it embeds properly. I think it is one that is free for commercial use. Is this, perhaps, the workaround?
Generally speaking, the right to actually embed font files in a digital book is separate from the right to create a print book using that font. Check with the provider of the specific font you have in mind to see what their terms are.
Buy a license for the font you want to use, and embed those in your e-books using Sigil or Calibre.
Mind the original post from over ten years ago was about embedding fonts in e-books. If you want to use fonts for paperbacks, I would ensure you’ve the right to use that font and design your book in a dedicated software program like InDesign.
When creating PDF-files you’re not really embedding those, so that would probably work just fine.
CSS—which you use to format an e-book—has a property called generic-family. Unlike family that sets a specific font family like “Times New Roman” it sets something like “serif”, “sans-serif”, or “monospace”. That does allow at least to some extent to visually distinct between different kind of text parts/narrators or else without having to worry about licensing a font family.
This setting should be used as a fallback even when you embed fonts as the latter might not be easy to read on a specific e-book device and the user decides to switch to standard fonts.
This is for a print book, so the design is, of course, not as simple. I am using fonts free for commercial use. It is illegal to use the standard fonts that come with windows, without buying the license, and so I’m asking in that regard–I’m updating all my interior files so that I am not breaking the law. I’m still using LEGAL fonts (free for commercial use). I need to know how to embed those, even if it’s on the Adobe Acrobat end.
I create my ebooks in Scrivener, without using an outside editor. (the files are cleaner and easier to create than any other program I’ve ever used). I am doing the same with the PRINT versions, but need to embed the legal fonts I’m using.
ALSO…I noticed that even when i manually replace a sentence, title, or text with a style or even just assign a font there, i still show a tiny portion of it as the old font (palatino)…I’ve tried deleting to pull up next paragraphs and then reformatting, but the instance of that font still shows in between the letters. I have yet to find a way to search and replace every instance of a font…that seems like another huge gap in the user-friendliness of the software.
