How do I install and use fonts in Linux?

If you are a graphic artist, writer, designer, or desktop publisher, then you are likely to need specific fonts installed on your computer. For Linux users this used to be a more difficult task. The good news is that more modern distributions make font installation much easier. Gone are the days of editing your xorg.conf font path information.

Installing fonts in Ubuntu

Once you have your handy collection of True Type fonts, you are going to want to create a directory to hold them. Installing the fonts system-wide will give all users access to them. First, create a font directory in/usr/share/fonts/truetype. Call this directory newfonts. Issue the command sudo mkdir /usr/share/fonts/truetype/newfonts. You will have to enter your sudo password to complete this task.

Once this directory is created, place all your *ttf or *TTF files in thenewfonts directory. With the fonts in place you will then need to issue the command fc-cache -f -v to make the system aware of the new fonts. Once this is done, the system knows about the new fonts and all the system users will have access to them.

If you want to make these fonts available only to specific users, then you will follow the same directions except you will add the fonts only to the users' ~/.fonts directory. If the ~/.fonts directory doesn't exist, create it with mkdir ~/.fonts (while logged into the specific users' accounts). Now move (or copy) all of the *ttf and/or *TTF files into the new directory and run fc-cache -f -v to make the users' accounts aware of the fonts.