Custom Kindle Paperwhite fonts

I thought jailbreaking would be required to install custom fonts on the Kindle Paperwhite, but a recent Kindle firmware update silently added support for accessing custom fonts.

This writeup walks through installing custom fonts on a few devices. A few simple steps will get you through it:

1. Mount the Paperwhite.
2. Create the file USE_ALT_FONTS in the mounted volume.
3. Create the folder fonts in the mounted volume, and add fonts consisting of all the following (where Font is the name of your font):
   • Font-Regular.ttf (.otf is also supported for the files)
   • Font-Bold.ttf
   • Font-Italic.ttf
   • Font-BoldItalic.ttf
4. Restart the device (Hamburger > Settings > Hamburger > Restart)
5. You may need to clear the font cache by searching on the home screen for ;fc-cache and then restarting.

You can find your Mac’s fonts in one of a few places:

• /System/Library/Fonts
• /Library/Fonts
• ~/Library/Fonts

Although I love reading in Georgia, it doesn’t render wonderfully on the Paperwhite, so the hunt is on for better typography.