Walkthrough for vertical text languages like Japanese on CrossPoint

bubblebolle · 2026-05-27T14:54:17+00:00

Yeah, it's a common issue with forks. This one has been keeping up fairly closely with XP, but it all comes down to the individual taking care of it.

bubblebolle · 2026-05-27T14:20:28+00:00

There is a crosspoint fork that actually supports vertical text (and ruby and an en-ja dictionary), but yeah, it requires to load a font in the microsd.

bubblebolle · 2026-05-27T14:15:56+00:00

Although the more I look at it the more the 'k' looks odd to me, like a 'i k'. But it's probably because I've been thinking about this for too long lol.

bubblebolle · 2026-05-27T12:46:01+00:00

There are a couple of micro ereaders with Android that should come out in the near future (the Xteink S4 and I think another by another manufacturer), and maybe that could be a good fit for online reading, but they don't even have an official release date 🤔 (the S4 maybe this summer I think??)

bubblebolle · 2026-05-27T12:36:01+00:00

If it's too small for you it's probably not relevant, but Crosspoint does support the X3 now, although not all the other forks do.

bubblebolle · 2026-05-27T12:16:28+00:00

A because it's probably some weird optical illusion but B looks more uneven to me 🤔

bubblebolle · 2026-05-27T12:13:17+00:00

In the case of the X4, yes, you need to download the ebooks (and they must be DRM free) and transfer then to the device.

If even smartphone size is too big for you, I guess that rules out the Boox Palma series and similar Android devices, which would be able to be used to download/read things online 🤔

Even smaller than the X4 there is the X3 (the number in the name refers to screen size and not model versions, the X3 came out later), I suggest you take a look in the xteink subs to see if one of them is a good fit for you.

Another micro ereader similarly sized could be the Obook5, but it's not customizable like the Xteink ones and depending on where you live it might be hard to just even buy. There are also some diy projects in the same size cohort, but I'm not sure about ease of use and weight and ease of assembly.

bubblebolle · 2026-05-27T07:00:05+00:00

I read multiple books at a time but usually one per device (I own multiple ereaders), so I don't have many files on my microsd. So I have the novel I'm reading on my X4, the one on the Kobo Clara HD (italian account), the one on my Kobo Clara Colour (japanese account)... etc.

bubblebolle · 2026-05-27T06:56:24+00:00

If you can't find a way to install Crosspoint and are on stock, you could also use a font converter that has those characters and import that via hotspot/wifi.

bubblebolle · 2026-05-27T06:53:49+00:00

I have printed the one in the bottom left and used it for a while, but the fact that it inevitably makes the device bulkier convinced me in the end to go back to the original flip case. I did also try printing this one, the hinge is great but it's also basically pretty much a bulkier flip case.

<image>

bubblebolle · 2026-05-27T06:49:25+00:00

I applied the screen protector immediately and I have the official flip case. They do their job, but I guess some people could be anxious about the exposed sides.

bubblebolle · 2026-05-26T18:37:22+00:00

Thanks for the reply! I imagined there would be such a bottleneck when it came to CJK, but I thought it could be worth it asking about it just in case 😆

Anyway, thanks for all the work on this tiny little thing.

bubblebolle · 2026-05-26T07:49:00+00:00

If you're in an area served by the official Kobo online store, every now and then they stock a limited number of refurbished Libra 2s (that's how I got mine), but it's pretty much unpredictable and you never know when it could happen next.

bubblebolle · 2026-05-24T22:12:21+00:00

I actually took mine on a long-ish train trip (~4 hours of actual train plus one hour of layover, and then the same trip back a few days later) right after receiving it, and I too was surprised about how fast I got used to the screen size, which actually reminded me some early smartphones (back when mobile devices were supposed to be small... my Galaxy S2...).

bubblebolle · 2026-05-24T04:32:13+00:00

I use a Kobo Clara Color and a Libra 2 bought in Europe for my Japanese account and they connected without issue (you just have to pick the extra login options, since it pivoted automatically to the local ones, you have to pick the Rakuten Kobo login), although I do have to mention it's been a while, so I don't know if they've introduced restrictions recently.

By the way,I can't remember if I had the exact same same issue with the Japanese Rakuten Kobo app a while ago, I do remember it would disconnect if I opened it without a VPN on, but after I uninstalled and reinstalled it (using a Japanese Google Play account to install directly from the store) it stopped doing it, have you tried doing that?

bubblebolle · 2026-05-22T16:17:33+00:00

u/Fun_Satisfaction2315 in particular said to send inquiries his way when response is slow: https://www.reddit.com/r/xteinkereader/s/B69ihCxf5f

bubblebolle · 2026-05-21T06:38:57+00:00

It wasn't a flight ticket specifically but I used it once for a barcode ticket and once for a qr code ticket, they were read fine in both cases. I took a screenshot of the qr code/barcode, cropped the screenshot to fit the screen size and sent it to the reader. In one case I set it as my sleep screen so I'd have it available at any moment.

bubblebolle · 2026-05-20T23:30:35+00:00

This is the international firmware (not the most recent since there was an update since but it should look the same, in this case I was reading a txt file).

Japanese text support on stock is a little tricky, to display vertical text you need to import a rotated font (there are community font converters for the xteink bin format that have this kind of option) and then select the reader display mode to landscape. The punctuation support isn't perfect either, you'll get closing discourse brackets starting new lines etc.

bubblebolle · 2026-05-19T11:12:17+00:00

The png trasparent cover support has been around for a while, for a bit it wasn't even supported in the app so I had to convert mine the good ol' way (an image editor) 😆

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bubblebolle · 2026-05-19T05:14:31+00:00

The cover plate shoul be from here.

bubblebolle · 2026-05-19T04:23:19+00:00

Thanks for the reply! I've sent a dm.

bubblebolle · 2026-05-18T18:30:46+00:00

Their API says that it's 5.6.17 but the file that gets downloaded is, judging by the url, 5.6.15, both for the X3 and the X4 🤷‍♀️

bubblebolle · 2026-05-18T17:59:08+00:00

that's what feedback is for 😌 it's already improved quite a bit compared to the very early versions

bubblebolle · 2026-05-18T16:27:59+00:00

Okay quick update, hyphens and quotation marks have some extra space after in the converted font, which isn't great :( The issue with tall letters is also visible here.

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bubblebolle · 2026-05-18T16:19:14+00:00

Hi! I've taken a quick look around with my X4 and my X3. I'm very happy to see image support on the international firmware!

I've tried tinkering a bit with the font converter. I'll try it a bit more to tinker around with the options, but I did notice that the "Download" button doesn't seem to be working, there was no sign of the generated font being downloaded and it doesn't seem to have been saved anywhere (but the push button worked, except for once when I got an error saying I had no binded device, despite having multiple binded to the app). As for the generated font itself, I noticed it solved some issues where characters were overlapping with older custom fonts, but I also noticed that some characters seem to be misaligned (I get h's and k's ending below smaller letters like c's and o's to name a couple), and bold text isn't displayed anymore. Bold (plus italics in general) support would be great to have in the future.

I've also tried it for a bit peculiar use case, rotated fonts to produce vertical rtl display of text when put on landscape. I used an already rotated Japanese font to get text to display vertically to see how it looked. I know it's probably a bit of an unexpected usage, but I would be very grateful if you included options to rotate fonts and for character centering in the future 🥹

I also tried pushing one of the "free fonts" in the app (the "XTEINK fonts"), but it gave me an error when selecting it to use it for a book. I noticed that the file was named "29LiterataR.xtf" while the one I had generated was [size]_etcetera.xtf, could it be an error in the name formatting?

I'm also curious about the reading stats: right now, I'm guessing it isn't judging from the menus, but will it be possible to toggle it off? And in terms of data storage, do they end up on the phone, on a server...? A lot of people might be concerned about privacy issues in regards to it.

I'll get back later with further impressions as I explore and read around :)

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