Strange English character spacing

[teristam]

Affected Version

0.3.4

Describe the Bug

I flashed the firmware using Xteink Unlocker. I saw very strange spacing for English text. I tried to flash the original crosspoint firmware using the SD card but it complained about firmware writing failed. Any solution?
Thanks!

Steps to Reproduce

Flash 0.3.4 via Xteink Unlocker

Expected Behavior

The text should appear normally.

Relevant Log Output/Screenshots

[lkfl]

Thank you! I am having the same issue after I flashed my new device yesterday, it is completely unusable.

[aBER0724]

@teristam @lkfl

That's issue of built-in font. You can resolve this problem by setting extra ui font, then the UI works normally temporarily.
SourceHanSansCN-Bold_20_20x20 is recommended UI font.

[lkfl]

Thank you! I got it working, though it seems to operate and index books so much slower than the English firmware. Do you have any tips for optimizing performance?

[aBER0724]

Thank you! I got it working, though it seems to operate and index books so much slower than the English firmware. Do you have any tips for optimizing performance?

@lkfl

Does the slow indexing happen with English books, Chinese books, or both? Chinese books may take longer to render because they require additional fonts, and Chinese characters are more complex than Latin letters. Large chapters with a lot of text can also make rendering slower.

I’m working on reducing the amount of text rendered at once to improve performance, but this may introduce larger gaps between rendered sections. I’m still trying to find the right balance.

[kay1230-hub]

Do you guys get English books to display with proper spacing ?

[aBER0724]

Do you guys get English books to display with proper spacing ?

@kay1230-hub
This has been fixed and will be released in the next version.

[Wren6991]

For anyone else stuck trying to install a working font when you can't read the menus:

• This font file goes in a fonts/ folder created at the root of your SD card
• "Settings" is the bottom entry on the home screen
• Press the up key to go to the bottom of the first settings section (UI font)
• Press select, down, select, select.

Fix seems to be 3618ede. Would it be possible to get a new release with just the current changes? This bug effectively bricks your device.

[Wren6991]

I tried to flash the original crosspoint firmware using the SD card but it complained about firmware writing failed.

I was able to reinstall the regular crosspoint by:

• Taking the second-stage installer from here, saving as firmware.bin
• Saving the regular crosspoint firmware as firmware-target.bin.
• Removing any other files called firmware-xxx.bin in the SD card root (the second stage will pick one at random, so don't give it a choice)
• Go to settings
• Three long presses on "down" to get to the system page
• Select the SD card install option (think it is two up from bottom, above the "check for updates") and click select until it reboots

[aBER0724]

This was fixed by bcd06d6 (fix: correct built-in UI font advance) and is included in current releases. The bug in 0.3.4 treated the built-in EPD font’s 12.4 fixed-point advanceX value as pixels, producing the excessive English character spacing shown here. Current rendering and width measurement convert that value to pixel units consistently.

Closing as fixed. If unusual spacing is still reproducible on a current release, please open a new issue with the firmware version, selected reader/UI fonts, and a sample book or screenshot.