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Embedded fonts in an ebook: allowed, not recommended

Every major ebook store accepts embedded fonts, and not one of them recommends them. What Kindle, Apple Books, Google Play, Barnes & Noble and Lulu actually say about fonts, body text size and line spacing, and what it means for the file you upload.

The Nueel team8 min read

There is a persistent belief that ebook stores forbid embedded fonts, and an equally persistent one that a “professional” EPUB embeds them. Neither is what the stores say. Read on their own pages, every major store says the same thing in slightly different words: embedded fonts are allowed, and the store does not recommend them. Those are different statements, and the difference decides how you should format the body of your book.

What each store says

Amazon Kindle. “Kindle supports embedded fonts within the eBook. These fonts can be either Open Type (OTF) or True Type (TTF).” Then: “Unless embedded fonts are necessary to convey intent, Amazon recommends using the default set of fonts installed on Kindle devices and applications because they have been tuned for high quality rendering.” Readers can turn publisher fonts off, and licensing is the publisher’s responsibility.

Apple Books. OpenType, TrueType and SVG fonts may be embedded, listed in the package manifest, with a flag telling the reading app the book specifies its own fonts. Apple recommends naming a font family only where it serves an intentional effect, and asks that a bold face be included alongside a regular one so the app does not synthesise bold.

Google Play Books. Its EPUB feature table has one row for embedded fonts and one tick beside it. Nothing more.

Barnes & Noble Press. “Embedded fonts are allowed: the publisher should own the right to include licensed fonts.”

Lulu. Its ebook requirements page says nothing about fonts at all. What it requires is a valid EPUB 3 that passes EPUBCheck, a complete navigation document, RGB images and no interactive elements.

So: allowed everywhere, recommended nowhere. A book without embedded fonts is exactly as publishable as one with them, at every store.

The rule that actually matters: the body text

What the stores do care about is whether the body text is left at the reader’s own size. A reflowable book has no page, so the reader owns the type size: every e-reader has a size slider and most have a line-spacing control, and a book that fixes either takes the control away.

Amazon states it outright. Body text “must use the default font size (1em) and line height”, and must not set font-size or line-height in CSS. Headings, captions, epigraphs and the like may be styled freely — Amazon “encourages creative styles” for them — but the body is the reader’s.

And it attaches a penalty that catches people who embedded fonts carefully and then fixed the body size: where a book’s font rules conflict with the reader’s settings, “the font files within the book will be intentionally removed”. The typeface you paid to license is dropped at conversion, silently, because the body was set at 11 point.

Apple asks for the same body — no font-size, or 1em — with one difference. It allows line-height as a unitless multiple, its example being line-height: 1.2. So a file written for Apple can keep the leading the designer chose, scaled to whatever size the reader picks, where a file written for Kindle has to leave line spacing to the reader entirely.

That difference is why one EPUB is not right for both stores. A file written for Kindle resets the body’s size and its line height; a file written for Apple resets the size and keeps the leading. Nueel writes each store’s file that way when you pick the store on the Export screen; see exporting.

What to embed

The stores’ advice is also good typographic advice. Embed a face where the face is the point:

  • a display typeface on chapter titles, where the reader is not going to change it anyway;
  • a script or a typewriter face for a letter, a telegram, a note in a different hand;
  • a monospace for code, where the device’s own may not be one;
  • a face that carries glyphs the device’s fonts lack.

Leave the body to the device. The first thing most readers change on a new e-reader is the font, and a book that insists on its own is fighting its reader on the one decision the format gives them.

Two practical notes. Check the licence: a desktop font licence rarely covers embedding in a distributed file, and the stores put that responsibility on you. And include the bold and the italic of any family you embed, or the reading app will synthesise them, badly.

Sources

Common questions

Does Amazon allow embedded fonts in a Kindle book?
Yes. Amazon's own guidelines say Kindle supports embedded OpenType and TrueType fonts. In the same paragraph they recommend the device's own fonts unless embedding is necessary to convey intent, and note that readers can turn publisher fonts off. So it is allowed and not recommended, which is a different thing from either forbidden or required.
Will embedding fonts get my EPUB rejected?
Not by any of the major stores, provided you have the right to embed the face. Barnes & Noble's guide says embedded fonts are allowed and that the publisher should own the right to include them. What does get a Kindle book into trouble is fixing the body text size or line height in CSS, which Amazon answers by removing the book's fonts.
Why does Kindle remove fonts from some books?
Amazon's guidelines say that where a book's font rules conflict with the reader's chosen settings, the font files within the book are intentionally removed. The conflict is usually a body text style that sets font-size or line-height. Leave the body at the reader's own size and the fonts stay.
Can I set line spacing in an Apple Books EPUB?
Yes, as a unitless multiple. Apple's asset guide asks for the body with no font-size or at 1em, and allows line-height as a unit-less multiple of the font size, giving line-height 1.2 as its example. Kindle forbids the property on body text outright, which is why a file written for Apple and one written for Kindle differ.
Should I embed fonts at all, then?
Embed them where the typeface is the point: a display face on chapter titles, a script in a letter, a monospace in code. For the body, let the reader's device choose. Every store says the same thing in its own words, and it is also what readers do: the first thing most people change on a new e-reader is the font.

Nueel is a web app that turns a finished manuscript into a typeset book, in your browser: import your Word file, choose a design, export a print-ready PDF and an EPUB. See how it works.