Embedding Fonts in EPUB Files

New­er Help Author­ing Tools such as Robo­Help (2015 release) and Mad­Cap Flare make it eas­i­er to embed fonts in EPUB files. This blog entry pro­vides step-by-step instruc­tions on how to embed fonts in Robo­Help (2015 release).

Some Basics

An EPUB doc­u­ment is a zip file with the .epub exten­sion. EPUB files can be read using e‑reader soft­ware on many devices includ­ing the iPad, iPhone, PCs, and smart­phones run­ning on Android. There are many types of e‑reader pro­grams. For this blog post, I down­loaded and installed Adobe Dig­i­tal Edi­tions on my computer.

For tech­ni­cal writ­ers, I believe EPUB files are one of the tech­nolo­gies to watch. The iBooks book­store sells its e‑books in an EPUB file for­mat. With tablets and smart­phones out­selling PCs, users are increas­ingly read­ing content—including tech­ni­cal communications—on these devices. Help Author­ing Tools also make it easy to cre­ate EPUB files.

One of the key advan­tages of an EPUB file is its abil­i­ty to reflow on dif­fer­ent devices.  The fol­low­ing image shows how an EPUB file appears on an iPad:

The next screen shot shows how the same file appears on an iPhone:

In con­trast, a PDF file may look beau­ti­ful on your 24-inch mon­i­tor at home but is dif­fi­cult to read on your smartphone.

Why Embed Fonts?

There may be times when you want to embed a font into your EPUB file to give a doc­u­ment a cus­tom look. If you are going to add cus­tom fonts to an EPUB file, you need to embed the font.  Oth­er­wise, some—or all—users will see the doc­u­ment dif­fer­ent­ly than you envisioned.

The fol­low­ing screen shot shows how an embed­ded font (called “Quin­tes­sen­tial”) appears on an iPad. With­out embed­ding the font, the user may see it in Ari­al (or anoth­er font), due to a font substitution.

Embedding Fonts in the Past

In the past, if you want­ed to embed a font in a EPUB file, you first need­ed to down­load a font from a site such as Google Web­Fonts, unzip the fold­ers inside an EPUB file, add the font to the cor­rect fold­er, and change your Cas­cad­ing Style Sheet (CSS) so that fonts would appear prop­er­ly. The process was not dif­fi­cult but sus­cep­ti­ble to errors. If you did not down­load the font to the cor­rect fold­er in your EPUB project, the font would not appear prop­er­ly. If you made a mis­take typ­ing some code into a CSS file—even for­get­ting to add a “;”—your font would not be prop­er­ly embedded.

Embedding Fonts is Much Easier Now

Thank­ful­ly, in new­er Help Author­ing Tools, embed­ding fonts is much easier.

Downloading the Font

To down­load the font:

1. Vis­it a site such as Google WebFonts.
2. Find a font that you like.
3. Down­load and install it on your com­put­er that is run­ning Robo­Help (2015).

Adding a Custom Font to your EPUB File

In your Robo­Help (2015) project, make a deci­sion where you want to use cus­tom fonts. For instance, you may decide that all Nor­mal text should use a cus­tom font.

To add a cus­tom font:

1. Select the text in which you want to apply a cus­tom font.
2. Select the Edit menu.
3. In the rib­bon, select Edit Stylesheet.
4. In the For­mat­ting sec­tion, select the font you want to use from the Font drop­down list. Click OK.

To embed a font in Robo­Help (2015 release):

1. In the Out­put menu, click eBook.
2. In the eBook Set­tings dia­log box, select Con­tent.
3. Select the Embed Fonts check box.

4. Click Man­age.
5. In the Embed Fonts dia­log box, select a font that you want to embed, click the Add but­ton, and click OK.

6. Click Save and Gen­er­ate.
7. In the dia­log box that appears, click View Result.

The e‑reader soft­ware (in this case, Adobe Dig­i­tal Edi­tions) dis­plays the embed­ded font.

New ver­sions of Help Author­ing Tools have made embed­ding fonts in EPUB files much simpler.