NOTE: People have been reporting occasional problems with their Kindle “freezing” or the menus not functioning correctly during this installation. With the latest version of this hack, you can avoid this problem by using the “‘reboot’ file” technique described below. In a worst case situation, you can always do a hardware restart by holding the on/off slider switch to the right for 30 seconds or more and then releasing it, allowing the Kindle to reboot itself.

NOTE 2: I suggest you do a “Sync and check for new items” with your Kindle before attempting any part of this hack, as at least one person lost his collections after having to reboot his Kindle. This way, should such bad luck befall you, after rebooting you can Sync again and get your collections back. Alternatively, you can also manually back up the collections file.

With many thanks and much appreciation to “NiLuJe” in a post at the MobileReads forum, we now have a font “hack” for the 2.5.x firmware version of the Kindle 2 and Kindle DX. As with any such unofficial modification of the Kindle, if you install it, you do it at your own risk. Neither I, NiLuJe, nor Amazon will be responsible for any problems that may ensue. OK, so after covering my butt, here’s the scoop:

The first thing you have to do is make sure you know which type of Kindle you have: K2, K2i (global), DX, or DXi (global). In this context, some of the file names we’ll be looking at may use “K3″ instead of “DX”, and in this context they are equivalent. Secondly, if you have never done a manual installation of an update file on your Kindle, take a read through my article, “Installing Update/Hack Files on Your Kindle“. Now we’re ready to go hacking.

The first thing to do before installing any 2.5.x-compatible hacks is the “jailbreak” installation. This operation only needs to be done once, so if you’ve already done it for the 2.5 Screensaver Hack, you do not need to do it again (assuming you have not undone it). To do the jailbreak, download the jailbreak Zip file. Unzip it, and look for the install file for your Kindle type, e.g. “update_jailbreak_dx_install.bin” for a DX (US), or “update_jailbreak_k2i_install.bin” for a Kindle 2 Global (NEW: it now includes a “dxg” file for the latest “graphite” DX.). Connect your Kindle to your computer and copy that install file to the “root” directory (the top-level directory, not into any of the folders you see there). Once copied, disconnect your Kindle from the computer, then go to the Settings screen, hit Menu, then select the Update Your Kindle option. If that option is grayed out, you probably did something wrong, such as putting the file in the wrong place. Go through the above instructions and links again. If the Update option is enabled and you select it, the update will start, and then it will fail. That is OK, and is the expected behavior. You are now ready to proceed.

Now to install a font hack, download the font hack zip file. Unzip it on your computer, open up the kindle-2.5-fonts-3.7.N folder, and find and open the src folder there. In there you will find a linkfonts folder. Drag and drop that entire folder, including all its files and sub-folders, into the top level of your Kindle (which you first reconnected to your computer). You should now see the linkfonts folder alongside the documents folders and other folders as in the above image. [As of the latest version, you no longer need to manually create/copy the folders/files, the hack installation will do it for you.]

Back in the 2.5-fonts-3.7.N folder, find the “update_fonts_3.7.N_XX_install.bin” for your Kindle type, where the “XX” is “k2″, “k2i”, “k3″, or “k3i”. Copy that file to the root (top) directory of your Kindle (not into any of its folders). Once you’ve done that, disconnect your Kindle from your PC, and initiate an update (Home > Menu > Settings > Menu > Update Your Kindle). When the update is done, immediately go back to the Settings screen, and this time do a Menu > Restart. This will apply the default fonts that come with the hack With the current version of this “hack” it is no longer necessary to Restart your Kindle once this update is complete.

Now to install a different font, download the zip file for the font you want to use:

• ArialRndNrw
• CModBold
• CModNarrow
• Droid_Sans
• Fontin
• Fontin2
• Georgia2
• Helvetica
• Helvetica2

Unzip the chosen font file on your computer, then open up the resulting folder so that you see a list of .ttf files:

Navigate into the linkfonts folder now on your Kindle, down into the fonts folder. You should see a bunch of font files listed there similar to the above image, but with several more files. Now, copy all of the files in the font folder on your computer into the font folder on your Kindle. (Make sure you’re copying from your computer to your Kindle, and not vice versa!) When prompted, say “yes” to overwrite the existing files of the same name. Once the files are copied, disconnect your Kindle, and just do a Restart (there is no need — nor should it be possible — to do an Update) to apply the new fonts.

NEW: In order to avoid the sporadic problems people have had with the Menu function in trying to do the Restart after copying the font files, you can copy an empty file named “reboot” into the “linkfonts” folder on the Kindle, and then it will automatically do a Restart about 15 seconds after you disconnect it from your PC.

So there are a few more steps to get the font hack loaded than with prior releases, but once it’s installed, it’s just a matter of copying the new font files and doing a Restart when you want to try a new font.