What's a safe serif font for an eBook read on iPad?

Question

I'm currently working on a document which I expect to be read as a PDF eBook on iPad. The primary font family is Times New Roman which is just fine until it's presented in either italics or bold at which point it reverts to a sans-serif font which all looks a bit odd.

After doing a bit of research, it seems that iOS won't render bold or italics for a number of serif fonts. Is there a safe (and preferably free) font which will play nice on the iPad? Some eBooks I've checked use Sabon but this comes with a price. Any other ideas?

Answer 1

I'd start by looking at the fonts that ship with the iPad and using one of those, as you'll know the device has all it needs to render that typeface: http://iosfonts.com/ show the fonts that ship with the current version and is a good place to start.

Answer 2

After a bunch of trial and error - including looking at a few other eBooks - Garamond has turned out to be a safe bet. If it's of help to anyone, you can see it in action here: http://www.troyhunt.com/2011/12/free-ebook-owasp-top-10-for-net.html

No negative typeface feedback after 16,000 downloads so I assume it's working ok across devices.