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Times New Roman or Garamond for ebook text?

13537 Views 53 Replies 20 Participants Last post by  Lummox JR, 
AnneEton
Should I go with TNR 12 point or Garamond 12 to set as my default font in the ebook text? Is there one that most people are going with?
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Aaron Pogue
I use Garamond for print and digital.
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CMTheAuthor
Depends on what platform you're using to publish. Some won't accept anything but simple text fonts like Times New Roman or Arial. Some also automatically convert the font anyway, so it doesn't matter what you do.

Assuming those are not issues, though, you're free to do whatever you want. Both fonts work, so the question then would be what do you think readers would find more aesthetically pleasing.
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AnneEton
CMTheAuthor said:
Depends on what platform you're using to publish. Some won't accept anything but simple text fonts like Times New Roman or Arial. Some also automatically convert the font anyway, so it doesn't matter what you do.

Assuming those are not issues, though, you're free to do whatever you want. Both fonts work, so the question then would be what do you think readers would find more aesthetically pleasing.
Click to expand...
I like Garamond more than Times. But if I set to Garamond and the ereader doesn't have Garamond and instead converts the font to something horrible like Courier, blech. I guess I'll just use Times. I'm probably thinking about this too much. ::)
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Adam Poe
Hmmm.. I used Georgia  :-\ :eek:
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Aaron Pogue
AnneEton said:
I like Garamond more than Times. But if I set to Garamond and the ereader doesn't have Garamond and instead converts the font to something horrible like Courier, blech. I guess I'll just use Times. I'm probably thinking about this too much. ::)
Click to expand...
Depending what you're using to produce your ebook, it's quite possible to set a preferred font and then a fall-back font (that's how HTML/CSS always works, and those are the foundation of epub).

So my ebooks are formatted to use Garamond if it's available, something from the Times font family if Garamond isn't available, and (as an absolute fallback) whatever default serif font is available.

Edit: In CSS, that looks like this:

Code: 
p {
  font-family: Garamond,"Times New Roman",serif;
}
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4
Don't set a font for your ebook. It can cause display errors on some ereaders, and it ticks readers off.
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AnneEton
Aaron Pogue said:
Depending what you're using to produce your ebook, it's quite possible to set a preferred font and then a fall-back font (that's how HTML/CSS always works, and those are the foundation of epub).

So my ebooks are formatted to use Garamond if it's available, something from the Times font family if Garamond isn't available, and (as an absolute fallback) whatever default serif font is available.

Edit: In CSS, that looks like this:

Code: 
p {
  font-family: Garamond,"Times New Roman",serif;
}
Click to expand...
Supercool. Thanks!
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AnneEton
smreine said:
Don't set a font for your ebook. It can cause display errors on some ereaders, and it ticks readers off.
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But I thought I had to... I guess I don't? I'm using Scrivener to compile. Aaaaaaaaarg.
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AnneEton said:
But I thought I had to... I guess I don't? I'm using Scrivener to compile. Aaaaaaaaarg.
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Ah. In that case, I don't know. I'm told Scrivener compiles ebooks well, so I imagine that the font issue is addressed somehow, either way.

I hand-code my ebooks, so I just don't put in anything about font families. :)
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shalym
smreine said:
Don't set a font for your ebook. It can cause display errors on some ereaders, and it ticks readers off.
Click to expand...
THIS

Please don't specify a font type or size, unless you want to get reviews complaining about the formatting of your book.

Shari
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AnneEton
smreine said:
Ah. In that case, I don't know. I'm told Scrivener compiles ebooks well, so I imagine that the font issue is addressed somehow, either way.

I hand-code my ebooks, so I just don't put in anything about font families. :)
Click to expand...
OK. Maybe I can get to the code and make sure there's nothing in it about fonts. Thanks.
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Aaron Pogue
Every ereader I know of can cleanly handle font sizes as long as they're provided as relative, not absolute (so "font-size: 1em;" or "font-size: large;" but not "font-size: 12pt;" or "font-size:16px;"). That's actually Amazon's recommendation in their KDP publishing guide.

As far as font family, I've sold nearly 200,000 copies across a couple dozen titles using the fall-through CSS above, and never had any customer complaints about formatting. Maybe I'm just dealing with a forgiving audience.
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shalym
Aaron Pogue said:
Every ereader I know of can cleanly handle font sizes as long as they're provided as relative, not absolute (so "font-size: 1em;" or "font-size: large;" but not "font-size: 12pt;" or "font-size:16px;"). That's actually Amazon's recommendation in their KDP publishing guide.

As far as font family, I've sold nearly 200,000 copies across a couple dozen titles using the fall-through CSS above, and never had any customer complaints about formatting. Maybe I'm just dealing with a forgiving audience.
Click to expand...
You've been lucky, then, as I just downloaded a sample of Taming Fire to my PaperWhite, and I can't change the font type from whatever you used to any of the other options on my Kindle.

Shari
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G
smreine said:
Don't set a font for your ebook. It can cause display errors on some ereaders, and it ticks readers off.
Click to expand...
This. I dump any sample that forces the font. One of the whole benefits of a Kindle is I get to set font and font size.
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shalym said:
You've been lucky, then, as I just downloaded a sample of Taming Fire to my PaperWhite, and I can't change the font type from whatever you used to any of the other options on my Kindle.

Shari
Click to expand...
I was just about to try that. :)

I think this is only a problem with newer devices (since the Kindle Touch). Times and devices, they are a-changing. It's a really easy fix. Just yank that line out of your CSS. But using em for size does work great, I agree.
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Aaron Pogue
ellenoc said:
This. I dump any sample that forces the font. One of the whole benefits of a Kindle is I get to set font and font size.
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Well...you get to set the font to one of three arbitrary faces chosen by the device manufacturer. Do you really like any of them more than Garamond?
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Atunah
Yeah, fix it and I either return it for a refund or I won't even bother reading the book. All kindles that handle the KF8 format now, which include the touch, KK and the paperwhite, will be stuck at a font. Unfortunately for me the default on the Paperwhite is a horrible sans serif font that is just not readable to me.

There are so many things that go wrong when authors/publishers fix the font. Sometimes the font is so tiny I would need a microscope, other times its just stuck at sans serif. I had examples of books on my KK that were stuck in a serif, but it looked stretched out just horrible to read.

Why would you even want to do that. None of those fonts are even an option on the kindles. And even if they are, the point of ereaders is that we can change to what is comfortable to read.

Its not about you and what you want. Its about the reader and what they want.
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5
Garamond for print?  Bleck.  :)
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Atunah
Aaron Pogue said:
Well...you get to set the font to one of three arbitrary faces chosen by the device manufacturer. Do you really like any of them more than Garamond?
Click to expand...
Your book is fixed at caecilia. My paperwhite has 6 font options, garamond is not one of them. So it goes to caecilia. Why would you purposely limit your books ???

So your goal is to force a font style on people because you like it? Odd that one.
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