Distorted fonts from Indesign export to EPUB

[McCarty Ministries]

I am exporting my Indesign file to EPUB (FIXED Layout). Many of the letters and words get squished together in the final product. My fonts are open type and embeded. This happens mostly to the italic version of Garamond but is not limited to that. It also happens to Apparat. Both fonts come from Adobe fonts. Any ideas? I have attached screen shots. Thanks!

[BobLevine]

Looks like you're viewing them in a substandard EPUB reader such as Adobe Digital Editions. If you're on Mac or iOS/iPad use the native Books app. For Windows use Thorium Reader.

[McCarty Ministries]

Thank you!

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

First, what viewer are you using to proof the EPUB docs? (Thorium is recommended.)

It looks as if you have some character formatting applied, at least to the second example. Are these defined character formats or spot overrides?

Both HTML/web and the EPUB format tend to squash the kerning/spacing at the right end of italicized words. It's inherent in the (fairly crummy) font management. The solution I use is to redefine the CSS style for italics and add a few px of padding to the right (padding-right: 2px;), but that does require editing the doc's CSS.

Finally, why are you using the limited FXL format, unless it's basically a picture book? Reflowable generally gives better results and is less... obsolete.

[McCarty Ministries]

Thank you very much! I am doing Fixed Layout because this father of three hasn't found the time to learn how to format the reflowable.