How to install fonts in Ubuntu?

[mssever]

I tried using the script, and it looked like it copied the fonts over fine; however, when I opened the GIMP to make sure I had the fonts, they were all defaulted to look like one of the monotypes. This may or may not be a unique issue - just thought I'd let you know (though the most likely reason is that I'm doing something wrong).

After some research on ubuntuforums.org, I've located a really simple way to install fonts (just to add on to the thread in case you're only looking to install maybe a few fonts at a time).

1) Download any/all fonts into one location (I'm using /home/"USERNAME"/ttffonts).

2) Navigate back to your home directory and create a folder called ".fonts". (This directory will disappear from view; don't worry about it, it's still there.)

3) In terminal, cd to /home/"USERNAME"/ttffonts.

4) cp all fonts in ttffonts to /home/"USERNAME"/.fonts (The only minor inconvenience about this is that, unlike using the script, you have to type out all fonts by hand - which may suck quite heartily if you're trying to install thousands of fonts from a server.)

5) Installation complete! (Source: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=263689)


(By the way, if you can help me get the script to work 100%, that would be awesome. It looks to be a very handy and well-written tool. I thought it might be because I'm using Breezy Badger instead of Dapper - could that be the culprit?)

My script works fine for me in Dapper but I have no idea about Dapper. It's likely, though. I first made the script for Red Hat, and when I switched to Dapper, I had to modify it extensively.

I didn't know about the .fonts directory. You don't even have to run fc-cache? Cool.

The beauty of the command line is that you don't have to type all of that stuff all the time. Use wildcards. For example, lets say that you have your fonts in a directory called fonts. You could do something like

cp fonts/* .fonts

or

cp fonts/*.ttf fonts/*.TTF .fonts

or even

mv fonts .fonts

If you had 5,000 fonts (too many to fit on a single command line, do something like

for i in fonts/*.ttf fonts/*.TTF; do cp "$i" .fonts; done

You could also do this from Nautilus, although if you take the time to learn the command line, you'll find that it's usually much faster and easier than using Nautilus (unless you need image thumbnails or something).

[mssever]

(By the way, if you can help me get the script to work 100%, that would be awesome. It looks to be a very handy and well-written tool. I thought it might be because I'm using Breezy Badger instead of Dapper - could that be the culprit?)

Are there any error messages? What happens if you start up another program (such as OpenOffice)? You usually have to re-start programs for font changes to take effect. You could even log out and back in, although that shouldn't be necessary. If you can give me some information to work with, I'd be happy to help tweak the script.

[SuperJETT]

I did the .fonts directory approach, just copied fonts in there and they are installed, nothing else to do.

Works nice.

[Aleksandersen]

When you drag fonts to the fonts:// directory the appear in the ~/.fonts/ directory only. It is kind of odd that you don't get any notification or indication that the font has been installed when you drag them to fonts://

[mssever]

Font installation is definitely an area that needs to be improved in Ubuntu. I don't know if this is fixed in Edgy. I hope so.

[neil095]

Or you could just read the system help and just copy the font to /usr/share/fonts/

[mssever]

Or you could just read the system help and just copy the font to /usr/share/fonts/

You also have to run

sudo fc-cache -fv

to cause the system to notice the changes. Hence my comment about this needing to be easier. In the ideal system, you should be able to accomplish any system task via either the command line or a graphical interface. sudo fc-cache -fv is hardly a GUI.

[eg-maverick]

You also have to run

sudo fc-cache -fv

to cause the system to notice the changes. Hence my comment about this needing to be easier. In the ideal system, you should be able to accomplish any system task via either the command line or a graphical interface. sudo fc-cache -fv is hardly a GUI.

Ah Ha!!! That's what I was missing! (of course how would I know?). I agree, it needs to be easier.
Thanks for this though.

Craig

[yellow beard]

Awesome script. Cheers.

[florizs]

I know of the font installing problem, It would be real sweet if there was an option in the gnome-font-viewer (gfontview) that asked if you'd like to install the font.
Or would it be better as an option in nautilus?

I believe we should ask the gnome-desktop developers about it.