How to embed a font in Epub format

[AppA]

Hello

1

I want to make an e-book in the fixed layout format. The file format should be Epub. I am exporting my file from Indesign, but I do not find any option or setting to embed a font. So how do I embed a font in Indesign, or is it done automatically when I export to Indesign?

2

And of course I need my chosen font to be seen by the end users on their Epub-readers, without any conversion of the font, that I am using in the file.

Are all Adobe fonts embeddable? And how about TTF and OTF, are these font types also embeddable?

I am using the font Foco (an Adobe font) and I have a license to Adobe Creative Cloud, but does this license allow me to use and distribute an Adobe font embedded inside a file in the Epub format.

3

And if you have any other advise on what to take note of, then please share it. 

Does making an Epub require skills in CSS and HTML or any other programming language?

Thank you

[Derek Cross]

Adobe Fonts are licenced for use on ePubs. OTF fonts are recommended.

Linkedin Learning has some excellent online video tutorials on creating ePubs with InDesign. You can get a 30-day free trial.

Knowing a bit of HTML and CSS is helpful in creating ePubs. 

[rob day · Accepted solution]

Are all Adobe fonts embeddable? And how about TTF and OTF, are these font types also embeddable?

Yes, Adobe fonts are included with the .epub package and are listed in the ePub’s CSS style sheet.

Does making an Epub require skills in CSS and HTML or any other programming language?

There is the option to add additional CSS style sheets, but that’s not a requirement.

[AndrewC1264]

So... once again - extremely let down by Adobe apps.

I have two books I have created for authors - gorgeous 250 and 480 page books that can only be handled as fixed layout epubs. InDesign handles this remarkably well.

I saw a few issues with overlapping images - looks great in print - but doesn't export. This needed to be in CMYK colour for print, so PNG was not possible in the print layouts, and updating both books given the amount of images... not possible. So the authors were OK with opaque overlaying in the epubs.

But where InDesign fails miserably - yet again - it's always something... embedding fonts. Why is there no checkbox in the export process that specifically requests embedding fonts?

So, of course I look up all of the help online and find many complaints and a few resources. Adobe cannot possibly not know this shortcoming in their flagship software. Why is this Adobe?

Anyways, if a simple little app like Sigil [www.sigil-ebook.com] actually worked I wouldn't be pulling my hair out, but Apple deems it as malware.

So - appears the only solution is to hack it open and inject custom css. Adobe can't even provide within its own app a simple "embed font" css stylesheet. Do I risk using a template from online only to find out it has hundreds of lines of code that adversely affect my book in other ways? Nope.

Adobe [and I know Adobe is not listening - I've posted in these forums before, Adobe is nowhere to be found due to their extreme lack of support, i.e. - if I wanted the manual read to me I would get my nephew to do so.

I need to embed fonts in two major book projects and once again, Adobe has let me down.

Need to stop paying all this money for such lacking software.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Very few tools do a good job with EPUB, which is a 12-year-old standard no one has ever really implemented correctly. ID does an adequate job but to bridge the gap, yes, you have to get into some CSS fine-tuning. It's not that hard, and is all the freeware/shareware editor-builder-managers enable anyway.

You can embed fonts with reflowable EPUB, which is the only version that should be used in the modern era anyway.

Fixed-page EPUB is, IMHO, a largely obsolete format. If you want fixed pages that preserve all your layout and presentation, use PDF.

[rob day]

This needed to be in CMYK colour for print, so PNG was not possible in the print layouts

The practice of placing CMYK images is a hangover from the 90s when there was no reliable color management in pagelayout apps. The same color managed CMYK color conversions that you make in Photoshop can also happen on an Export to PDF by setting the Output Destination to the correct CMYK profile, or the conversion can happen in the RIP at output when the CMYK destination profile is known. For future projects, which need to be output for both print and screens, you might consider placing profiled RGB images with Overprint Preview turned on.

[AndrewC1264]

Hi, while I realize I may sound like a dinosaur here... I simply cannot fathom why Adobe would have any mechanism to export to any epub format without the built-in ability to embed fonts. This has been a part of PDF generation for decades.

And as for the CMYK image work... first... the colour elements were gradients created within InDesign in colours that match full colour images that were colour-balanced for print - I required control of the colour image work, not just create RGB images and hope for the best. Many of the images required solid blacks - generating this as an RGB image would be unacceptable for print. I did, however, convert a few images that did not originally translate well in the epub test to RGB so that they would cooperate, but have the CMYK images for print if they ever need updating for print again.

Thanks.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

PDF is an Adobe-developed standard that has had careful development and tremendous support from the major platform tools; it's compact, it's universal and its primary advantage is that it can create a precise electronic page from almost any application, even ones that need to do it through a PDF "print" utility. It incorporates several layers of standards so that it's useful for accurate color rendering and prepress use.

EPUB is a community-developed standard that has never really been implemented in a rigorous fashion by anyone; it was drafted (v3.0, almost 12 years ago) and left to the individual interpretation of whomever wanted to write an export tool, editor, validator, whatever. Instead of finding a solid niche of usefulness, it became something of the freeware, loosely implemented "in between" standard for electronic documents. It's just now being kicked into useful, consistent shape by groups like the one supporting Thorium Reader.

EPUB was never really meant for fixed page layout like PDF; it's a packaged web format that was meant to use the flowing, liquid layout of (now somewhat old-school) HTML, defined by the reader/browser instead of the author/designer. FXL EPUB is doubly obsolete but the choice of the legions of author/publishers who want to publish picture books (e.g. children's books) and often lack the vision or skills to do so in a fluid format—books have pages, therefore their ebooks must have pages. That, and the biggest use of EPUB, to create corporate/industrial libraries, which for simplicity and speed also used FXL. Most of that has gone to PDF for very good reasons.

InDesign does support font embedding, and other sophisticated features, for EPUB... for reflowable format. If you insist on working in an antiquated, obsolete, limited format like FXL, you can easily embed fonts using CSS editing, which is far simpler than most of the past processes of using various shareware/freeware tools to hack together an EPUB document.

No, InDesign's support of EPUB is not perfect and it's not even truly comprehensive. But it's probably the best pro-layout-to-EPUB tool there is, or may ever be at this point. Use its strengths and acquire the skills to fill in the gaps between that and your unique goal.

[rob day]

not just create RGB images and hope for the best

Photoshop’s Info panel and Proof Setup let you make accurate CMYK number color corrections without making the actual conversion to CMYK. As long as you handle the source and destination profiles correctly, proof CMYK values will make it through to InDesign and a PDF export CMYK conversion.

I can set my Photoshop Proof Setup to the CMYK output profile, and then set the Info panel’s eydroppers to Proof Color. Here I’m setting Coated FOGRA27 as the output profile. I have a Selective Color adjustment layer, and the Info panel’s 2nd column of CMYK values show the FOGRA output values.

If I place the layered PSD in an InDesign document with Coated FOGRA27 as its CMYK assignment, Separation Preview shows the matching CMYK values. These are the values I would get on a PDF/X-1a or PDF/X4 export with the Output Destination set to Document CMYK:

If I sample a color from the RGB image, I get a match—I can convert it to CMYK with the Color panel, or leave it as RGB and let the conversion happen on Export and get matching CMYK values:

[manal shanableh]

Is there ayway to generate css file with embedded font with editing the css file?

i generate the css file bu exportig html file.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

CSS does not embed fonts. You can include @Font statements to direct the styles to use specific fonts, but font embedding is a part of the export (and, in the manual EPUB building methods, part of including the font files in a specific location within the EPUB package.

Checking "Include Embeddable Fonts" on the reflowable export menu should take care of the matter for ID export, but InDesign will check to see if the fonts are legally/licensably embeddable.

As far as I know, all Adobe fonts are embeddable (and will be encrypted to work only with that export file).

[manal shanableh]

i am workinng with fixed layout epub, not reflowable.

CSS does not embed fonts. You can include @Font statements to direct the styles to use specific fonts, but font embedding is a part of the export (and, in the manual EPUB building methods, part of including the font files in a specific location within the EPUB package.

ca you explain this more please?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Sorry, I missed that this thread was about FXL EPUB.

Fixed layout EPUB, at least as exported from InDesign, always embeds the fonts. There is no export or menu option to control or manage it. 

CSS is the document style sheet. It can define fonts used for each style, and include font loading directives, but the actual inclusion of font files in the EPUB document is managed by the export process. CSS has nothing to do with that aspect. 

[manal shanableh · Accepted solution]

i just solved the issue for css, edited it and fixed the issue with RTL style to be readed well in an epub reader, last days, i had to fix the arabic text i fixed epub with OUTLINE the text. but now its DONE 

[Zaid Al Hilali]

@manal shanableh 

So the Arabic lines in the above example of yours are not outlined, right?