For some people, reading on an e-reader seems too modern and too far from the experience of reading a paper book. I've come up with a solution that transforms the display of any ebook into a style that mimics an old book.
As you may know, printouts of old books have a specific and characteristic font that isn't as clean and regular as recent printouts.
As a visual example is better than a long explanation, here's a text displayed by the Bookerly font followed by the display we want to achieve:
If you can't simply change the font of the page displayed on a reader, it is possible to use a new font that will reproduce some of the characteristics of these old scripts.
The best font I've found is called IM Fell English and can be downloaded from various websites at the following addresses:
- https://www.dafont.com/fr/im-fell-types.font
- https://fontmeme.com/polices/police-im-fell-english-sc/
- https://www.1001freefonts.com/fr/im-fell-english.font
You can use this font on your computers, but what we're interested in here is using it on a reading device. I've already published several guides to installing fonts on Kindle e-readers:
Once the font is on your e-reader, you can select it to obtain the desired display on the e-reader:
I've already read several hundred pages with this font, and I'm very pleased with it. The fact that the characters are not so well aligned on a line makes the text display subtly closer to that of a paper print.
The characters are also less smooth. These are details, but they all contribute to a more traditional reading experience.
However, not everything is perfect. I find the capital Q a little unsightly. The apostrophes are also a little too large.
Still, if you want to bring a slightly vintage reading experience to your e-readers, I highly recommend this font, which should work on all your reading devices.
