Hack to change fonts Paratext 8 uses for resources

Question

One limitation after migrating to Paratext 8 is you cannot change the font used by resources you download. I’ve figured out it is possible to specify a different font for a resource with a little manual editing of the user.config There is a section called ProjectFontOverrides, that looks like this:

  <setting name="ProjectFontOverrides" serializeAs="Xml">
            <value>
                <SerializableStringDictionary>
                    <item>
                        <string>NIV11</string>
                        <string>Sylfaen:14::</string>
                    </item>
                    <item>
                        <string>NRSV</string>
                        <string>Tahoma:12::</string>
                    </item>
                    <item>
                        <string>CEVUS06</string>
                        <string>Times New Roman:14::</string>
                    </item>
                </SerializableStringDictionary>
            </value>
        </setting>

You can type a different font name in the second “string” section, below the string identifying the project name. For instance if I would rather have the CEVUS06 in Arial, I’d change this to

  <setting name="ProjectFontOverrides" serializeAs="Xml">
            <value>
                <SerializableStringDictionary>
                    <item>
                        <string>NIV11</string>
                        <string>Sylfaen:14::</string>
                    </item>
                    <item>
                        <string>NRSV</string>
                        <string>Tahoma:12::</string>
                    </item>
                    <item>
                        <string>CEVUS06</string>
                        <string>Arial:14::</string>
                    </item>
                </SerializableStringDictionary>
            </value>
        </setting>

This user.config file is in the Appdata folder. Complete path: c:\users_yourusername_\Appdata\Local\United_Bible_Societies\paratext.exe (followed by a long string of random letters)\Paratext version #
Be aware, if you have Paratext 7, it puts settings in a “United Bible Societies” folder in Local, with spaces between the names, Paratext 8 uses the “United_Bible_Societies” folder.

If you don’t see a “ProjectFontOverrides” section in your user.config, you can have Paratext begin it for you by changing the point size for a resource that permits this, like the NIV11.

Developers, any hidden dangers in editing this file? I think if it gets corrupted or missing, Paratext will just recreate a default copy. So if you make any special font assignments, you’ll have to redo them if you ever reset Paratext.

Answer 1

This is a very serious issue for the TEXT COLLECTION WINDOW. When the font and size of font is very different for a resource it can look very bad. Editing the font and even stylesheet for a resource should be possible.

Comments

FYI – the hack I’ve described does work when the resource is in a text collection as well as open in a “regular” window. But I think anon198078 has a good point.

Developers, since Paratext can already write these override strings when a user changes the font size for a resource, why not permit the user to change the font name and write that string in the user settings file? And some resources, such as the Hoffnung Fur Alles, don’t permit the user to change the point size.

FYI, when you change the zoom for a resource in a regular window, that does not affect how big that resource appears in a text collection window. If you change the zoom in the left side of a text collection, or in the one pane view, the zoom affects all the resources in the collection. If you change the zoom in the right pane of the two pane view, that change only applies to that pane and the resource currently in that pane. Activate a different resource in the right pane and the zoom setting goes away. Paratext does remember it if you activate the first resource again.

---

It is by-design that you can only change the font if the font for the project is not found on your machine. This is true for all projects, not just resources.

However, you should always be able to change the font size for the project.

---

For the HFA (Hoffnung Fur Alles) resource, I cannot change the font size. The dialog lets me select a different font size, but I cannot click OK to save the change.

---

I do not have any problems with changing the font size for Hoffnung Für Alle (Hope for All) 2015 (HFA) resource under Project > Language Settings…

In Paratext 8.0.100.10, if you zoom a resource in the right pane of a text collection window, that zoom setting is remembered if you display a different resoure and then go back to the original resource.

---

A related problem is that every time you change the font size of a language of a text in the text collection window, the whole of PT8 resets to verse 0 in whatever chapter you are in. That is very cumbersome and in my view shouldn’t happen.

And yes, in Hoffnung für Alle they wanted to have an added accented letter “a” as á/Á and mistyped it without the accent on the capital; and they wanted ß/SS as an added version of the letter “s”, but forgot the / between them (I can see that because I’m German:-)… ). So if someone can fix that, perhaps then it would work.

---

I think there was an update of the Hoffnung für Alle version a few weeks ago where all of that was corrected. At least everything is working fine for me now and everything under the Language Settings > Alphabetic Characters tab seems to be correct now.

---

Yes, there was an update. But no, it didn’t fix those issues I listed. I just went online, there is no more recent version. But it doesn’t matter, for me their font is fine, even though I can’t edit it.

---

The Hoffnung für Alle resource comes with the Sylfaen font. Since that is a Windows 10 system font, it is not possible to change the font of this resource on a Windows 10 computer. But it is possible to change the font size.

---

Actually, on my machine, all 3 German versions run in Verdana 10 on the same language (deu) and I don’t think I changed that in PT8, because it is greyed out due to the error in the alphabetical list. After hacking it as described above, I can change the font size but not the font for them. For the English versions (NIV) hacking it does subsequently allow changing font and its size. But for others (NRSV, CEV, GNTD) PT gave me a choice to change to a font available on my machine (Win 7 Pro) and after that I can change fonts and their size. So it obviously depends on the version what you can do with it.

Answer 2

If this turns out to be a safe thing to do, then it might be one possible solution when a user does not have the font called for by a resource. (Something that also can happen in the new system, by the way.)

Answer 3

The only reason the OK button should be disabled is if there is an error somewhere. Is there an error on one of the other tabs? If so, then there is probably a problem with the resource that needs to be fixed - or maybe those errors should be ignored for resources since they can’t be fixed by users anyways.

EDIT: Yep, there is an error with that resource on the Characters tab.

Answer 4

It would be "very nice" if the config file could specify a general font substitution in ProjectFontOverrides, or else somewhere in a Language section, e.g., "every project (or language?) that specifies Sylfaen, change it to Arial on this computer."

Probably not a trivial addition....

Answer 5

sewhite:

One limitation after migrating to Paratext 8 is you cannot change the font used by resources you download.

On the machines and projects I manage, I had not noticed this since the PT8 migration. But today and yesterday I updated the RSV ressource on two machines. And now the font is locked to a very ugly and almost unlegigble (on the screen) font called Maiandra GD and the size is also locked to 12pt. We can change the font-size, but the OK button stays gray so not possible to make it even bigger for better readability.

This must be a bug. What publishing house would prevent thousands of different teams from using the font that serves them best for their work? What could even be a reason to lock up a font on an e-ressource? Prevent theft through screen-shots and OCR? I hope not. We would like good ole Charis SIL or Andika in most windows - and the option to change as needed.

Side note: It is not helpful that send/receive keeps moving the language settings around. Each user should be able to set their own font-sizes at least and preferably more (according to their reading habits and preferences, or special needs).

Comments

Tim:

This must be a bug. What publishing house would prevent thousands of different teams from using the font that serves them best for their work?

It is not a bug and is not related to the publishing house or any copyright concerns. It was a limitation that was the result of how Paratext is now storing the resource data. We know that losing this functionality is an issue for some users. Getting feedback on how important this was to users is why this survey was created.

---

Thank you for more info. I am new here. Went and did the survey.

---

Could you create a ‘hack your own resource’ tool online somewhere? Something like NRSI’s TypeTuner Web where you can make changes to fonts and then download them.

What I’m envisioning is a webpage where you select settings you want applied. Then on a server somewhere those changes are incorporated into a resource and the folder is zipped up with the normal resource password. You could then download that ‘tuned’ resource.

Of course you would have to install it manually, but this process would seem easier than re-programming Paratext to allow resources to be edited.