How to install TrueType fonts on your Ubuntu computer

Have you ever wanted to just grab any old TrueType font of the web
and start using it in applications on your Ubuntu machine? Did you know
that you can and it’s not all that hard? Here’s how to get your system
to recognize new fonts for any user.

First you’ve got to find a font you want to install. Open up your
favorite search and look for true type fonts or .ttf files. I found a
font called “A Cut Above The Rest” which I downloaded on to my desktop.

Now, you’ve got to do a little terminal magic (Applications->
Accessories -> Terminal) to move this file into the right place and
regenerate your cache of fonts.

Once in your terminal, we’re going to head down to where Ubuntu keeps it’s fonts.

cd /usr/share/fonts/truetype

Let’s make a directory to store all of your downloaded fonts in. We’ll call it myfonts.

sudo mkdir myfonts

Now move into that directory.

cd myfonts

Okay, so you’re here and the font(s) you just downloaded are on your
desktop. What to do? Move them to this location like this:

sudo mv /home/USERNAME/Dekstop/*.ttf .

Replace USERNAME with your own. Grabbing any .ttf files
with a wildcard (*) makes it easy for you to download a bunch to your
desktop and then dump them into the right place.

Now that you’ve got your fonts where you want them, it’s time to tell Ubuntu that they’re here.

fc-cache -f -v ~/.font

You can now open any program that utilizes system fonts and access your new font. Let’s see how OO2 writer looks.

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