PRS-T1 e-reader support chinese characters?

[yoanlee]

i want to know if the sony prs-t1 support chinese txts or not.

And can i put my own txts files in rather than downloading it form the website

Thanks

[rtdavey]

Hi yoanlee

I have been trying this also, as I have documents that use a mixture of Mandarin and English... but have found difficulty. The only way I could do this was by converting my text documents to pdf using the free OpenOffice software which let me import my txt and doc files and export them as pdf's. I also had to size the text correctly in Open Office because if I changed font size in the Sony T1 Reader, the Reader messed up the justification layout for the documents. But at least I could read the Chinese characters correctly.

I reallt wanted an EPUB book but the Chinese characters were not displayed in this book format. Very disappointing!!! ... especially as the Reader is based on an Android system... and my phone and tablet which are based on Android have no problem reading all my Chinese characters. Anyone else have any experience with this?

Robert

[dlincanada]

Disappointing indeed.  I'd had 2 different other ereaders before: Kobo, and Kindle 3.  Sony T1 is by far the best.

The culprit is the ebook reading application in the device.  The operating system can display Chinese book name without problem.  The browser can show Chinese web pages perfectly well.

Hope future updates can remedy this HUGE deficiency.

Only reason I keep it is I read English EPUB 99.9% time.  But I can't say for the gazillion others would want to read Chinese EPUB ebooks.  Sony will lose a lot of business because of this dumb business decision.

Den.

[TomEkstrom]

I just bought a PRS-T1 Sony Reader to my wife as a birthday gift. So far I've installed 3 Chinese EPUB books to the Reader, and they show up correctly using a Chinese font. I had to do some tweaking with the EPUB files to get it working though. The trick is to embed the Chinese font to the EPUB file (it's a normal ZIP file, just the extension is changed from .zip to .epub). Besides adding the font, you also need to edit one or two files that already exist inside the EPUB file.

So, just to give you some encouragement: in CAN be done.

I found this forum discussion very helpful:

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36361

If youy're not familiar with PC tools like text editors or WinZip, there's a tool called Calibre that might be able to embed the font in the EPUB file. I haven't tried it myself though, but here's a link to the home page: http://calibre-ebook.com/

Note that so far I've only done this with unprotected (non-DRM) EPUB files. I guess that DRM-protected EPUB files are wrapped in an additional DRM container, so they can't be unzipped and modified.

Also I noticed that some of the Chinese EPUB files are referring to an external font file. In theory it should work so that you just copy the Chinese font to the PRS-T1 (via USB cable), and the EPUB should be able to locate the font from there. So far I just haven't been able to figure out how the URL to the font, specified in the StyleSheet file inside the EPUB, maps to a folder in the PRS-T1. Or then the folder where the font should be copied is simply not accessible when connecting the PRS-T1 with USB.

If you want to do it manually (like me), just ask and I'll try to give more detailed instructions.

[dlincanada]

Nice hearing T1 users are looking for ways to circumvent the ereader’s deficiency.

My work-around is different.  I found a hack to unlock the Android features.  Now I’m using a freeware Cool Reader as my main Epub book app in T1.  Not only It’s much better in terms of features and appearance, it can view Chinese Epub books without any tweaking.  This confirms my original suspicion: the factory ebook app is the sole culprit for showing gibberish when opening a Chinese book.

The Android unlock hack seems very stable so far and easy to revert to factory settings.

However, not a lot of users are techy or brave enough to do these tweakings.  And they shouldn’t have to do them.  That would be like buying a car that can go any direction but East unless you get your hands dirty fiddling with its control systems.

Den.

[happyfluke]

I have read the discussion on Mobileread.com but I don't understand what they are talking because of the technical terms. I've also downloaded Calibre. Can you give me more detailed instructions on how to embed Chinese fonts to epub files. Thank you.

[Gengwei]

This problem is really frustrating. Kobo touch, Kindle or Odyssey doesn't seem to have this issue. I hope Sony to fix the reader application as soon as possible as neither tweaking ePub files nor rooting the reader is an ideal solution.

[gongsun]

So should I buy a Kobo rather than a PRS-T1 if I use Chinese sometimes?

[dlincanada]

I didn't own any Kobo long enough to find out if it's Chinese/Korean/Japanese capable.  But Kindle 3 has problem displaying many Chinese characters.

Overseas East Asian readers should boycot Sony T1 until they get their acts together to fix this problem.  It's only the ePub app.  OS and browser can display Chinese without difficulty.

Your safest bet now is to buy an eReader in HK/Taiwan/Mainland China if Chinese reading is a must.

Of course, people can always read Chinese ePub books on their PC or tablet.  Tons of freeware ePub apps around.

[dlincanada]

@happyfluke,

Follow below steps:

******

Use 'Calibre', downloadable from the Internet.  A great freeware app.

Import Chinese ePub book into Calibre.  Right-click the book entry, then choose 'Tweak ePub' from the drop-down menu.

Click the 'Explore ePub' button.  Double click the .CSS file to edit it.

Insert the follow lines at the end of the CSS and save it.  (from @... to }  )

@font-face {
   font-family: "DroidSans", serif, sans-serif;
   src:url(res:///ebook/fonts/DroidSansFallback.ttf);
   }

Click the 'Rebuild ePub' button.  Then Save a copy and transfer it to T1.

**********

I got the above information from a person in Hong Kong.  Much thanks.

You have to repeat the procedures for every Chinese ePub book you want to view on T1.  A pain, but worth the trouble.