Installing Microsoft Fonts September 9, 2005
Posted by Carthik in ubuntu.trackback
Even if you use OpenOffice, you might still want all the Microsoft TrueType fonts so that documents created using Word or PowerPoint look as they were supposed to when you open them with OpenOffice. Also, with the Microsoft Fonts installed we browsing will be better since the pages will look as the designer originally intended them to. Most webpages are designed with Microsoft fonts in mind. The stylesheet specify these fonts. On Linux, when these specified fonts are not available on your computer, they are replaced with generic equivalents. With these fonts installed, you will see the page as it was designed. To install the fonts, all you need to do in Ubuntu is to install the msttcorefonts package. Instructions for installation are given below.
The Truetype Microsoft fonts provided by the package include:
- Andale Mono
- Arial Black
- Arial (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
- Comic Sans MS (Bold)
- Courier New (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
- Georgia (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
- Impact
- Times New Roman (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
- Trebuchet (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
- Verdana (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
- Webdings
Installing Microsoft Truetype fonts on Ubuntu
You can install the MS core fonts by installing the msttcorefonts package. To do this, enable the “Universe” component of the repositories. This is done by default in Feisty. After you do that, use the following command from the command line:
$sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts
This will give you the core fonts, but if there are other TrueType fonts that you want installed, it is as easy as copying the font files to the ~/.fonts/ directory.
After installing new fonts, you will have to log out and log in again to be able to see and use the new fonts. If you want to avoid this, you can regenerate the fonts cache by issuing the following command:
$sudo fc-cache -fv
you come up with some great pratical stuff -
msttcorefonts has an amusing history; Microsoft licensed the fonts for anyone to freely use (regardless of OS) to help boost the market share of IE. When they won the first browser wars, they removed the files from their site… but the license says you can freely redistribute them so that’s how we can legally use them
BTW, I filed a bug on launchpad because Tahoma isn’t included in the Debian/Ubuntu versions of msttcorefonts: https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/msttcorefonts/+bug/50529
See also http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/
[...] [link1][link2][link3] [...]
Googled for “how to install web core fonts ubuntu” and your blog was second in the results list. Very useful information. Now my Eclipse PHP code fonts look MUCH nicer.
Thank you!
Thanks very much for the tip on installing the MS fonts. This will help make things more home-like in Ubuntu.
[...] Ecco il link con la procedura. [...]
Awesome. That was so leet. I Googled for “how to install truetype fonts ubuntu” and got this. This works, simple, and was easy to understand.
Good job making it into my RSS feeds list
“$sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts” does not work on Ubuntu 6.06. I get an error :
Package msttcorefonts has no installation candidate
Add universe and multiverse repositories,
” All done, no errors.
All fonts downloaded and installed.”
even after this, the fonts looked better in Windows, is there an equivalent of ClearType for Linux? Or do fonts just look worse in Linux, period.
what script does this run if i want to install it? mine can’t download the files from sourceforge so i downloaded them manually and now I don’t know where to put them so they’re available to everyone!
Lilandra,
Try the third method in http://linuxhelp.blogspot.com/2005/12/adding-windows-fonts-in-linux.html please.
I would suggest trying to install msttcorefonts again. Youc an do this by
$sudo apt-get install –reinstall msttcorefonts
Sourceforge might just have had a temporary glitch or something.
thanks!
Andrew Swihart: Yes, you can make fonts look nice. You need to enable what they call “sub-pixel antialiasing” (like ClearType).
If you are using a GNOME-based distribution like Ubuntu, you can find the preference in your “System” menu under “Preferences”/”Fonts”.
The fonts you copy from windows are located in:
C:/WINDOWS/FONTS on Windows 95 or Windows 98 systems.
C:/WINNT/FONTS on Windows NT, 2000, XP systems.
Just drag ‘em into this directory: /home/my_name/.fonts
everything looks bigger in ubuntu, as if the font dpi has been increased, but its at 96, just like Windows, so why is everything still bigger?
I just can’t see as much at 1280×1024 as I can on Windows
I’m getting this error when I try to download msttcorefonts package from Ubuntu’s Package website. (I’m newb to Linux)
“Error: Dependency is not satisfiable:cabextract”
Can someone help me?
Nevermind, following these instructions worked for me and should help poster #8, found the solution on ubuntuforums
Use Synaptic Package Manager, look under the Settings Menu and choose Repositories.
Then click on Add and select the Multiverse Repositories. It will take a little bit to load the new repositories.
msttfcorefonts will now be there.
Mark it for Installation and choose Apply.
Nice article. Worked well for me. Thanks
very nice.
i had trouble with my wined mathtype, now it all works
thanks! =]
I tried to install the trutype fonts in my ubuntu 6.06 and I got this following error:
sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree… Done
Package msttcorefonts is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
E: Package msttcorefonts has no installation candidate
I tried to install the trutype fonts in my ubuntu 6.06 and I got this following error:
sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree… Done
Package msttcorefonts is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
E: Package msttcorefonts has no installation candidate
Can u give me more details!
Edwardian Script ITC is a nice-looking font and I installed it from a free source some weeks ago. However, even though it appears to be installed, when I try to use it I get Times New Roman instead. My operating system is Windows XP. Can anyone give me some help, please?
if u have windows as other OS this is easy method
login as root to do so u may refer
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=31053
then open fonts:/// in nautilius
copy fonts(ttf) from /WINDOWS/FONTS/ to the directory above
Hey, thanks Boo-K00 !! Your post #15 is the easiest way to get MS-Fonts on Ubuntu-Linux. I’m using both AbiWord & OpenOffice and it WORKS like a CHARM !!! Nevermind all the other intensive posts…
Thanks for the tip! The relevance of your post just proves Google’s accuracy again!
I had to activate the Multiverse repositories (comment 1
and then:
>apt-get update
>apt-get install msttcorefonts
Ctrl+Alt+Backspace
Thanks for the tip. This post saved my day.
For ubuntu users: since adding the universe and multiverse didn’t work for me either, i.e. apt-get install msttcorefonts still gave the same error, I copied the MS true type fonts directory (I got it from another system) to /usr/share/fonts/truetype/ (set owner root.root and permissions 644 for this directory and files).
P.S. If you are wondering where to find the fonts, get them from Windows!
According to message 15 above by boo-k00, after telling you where to look for your font files in Windows, she then says “Just drag ‘em into this directory: /home/my_name/.fonts” Well…when I look in my /home/grant/ directory, there is no “.fonts” directory, not even when I do a Ctrl+H to show the hidden files! Can anyone assist me with this?
I have a large number of fonts I want to move from Windows.
Grant: try
cd ~
mkdir .fonts
[...] Installing Microsoft Fonts « Ubuntu Blog Even if you use OpenOffice, you might still want all the Microsoft fonts so that documents created using Word or PowerPoint look as they were supposed to when you open them with OpenOffice. You can install the MS core fonts by installing the msttcorefonts package: [...]
[...] Installing Microsoft Fonts « Ubuntu Blog Even if you use OpenOffice, you might still want all the Microsoft fonts so that documents created using Word or PowerPoint look as they were supposed to when you open them with OpenOffice. You can install the MS core fonts by installing the msttcorefonts package: $sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts [...]
[...] site also recommended using Microsoft fonts, but each time I installed it, my system would begin to crawl, and I had to [...]
[...] trackback Ubuntu offers a lot of fonts, in addition to the defaults installed, and the MicroSoft msttcorefonts package, in its repositories. All these fonts mentioned here are provided as packages, which can easily [...]
[...] offers a lot of fonts, in addition to the defaults installed, and the MicroSoft msttcorefonts package, in its repositories. All these fonts mentioned here are provided as packages, which can easily [...]
Ok, thank you mister, just what I was looking for.
Great tip, thanks!
Hei, it’s nice to know you. Thanks for the tip!
Thanks HEAPS.
That was the (almost) last piece to my puzzle!
For interest, I was trying to get fonts onto a webserver so that I could run fancy image-generating functions ( SVG conversions via LibrSVG ) and needed the fonts available.
On a hosted environment, of course, it was tricky to get an admin to install arbitrary fonts, but instead I was able to get my webserver process to do it for me!
Using a small run-once bit of php:
“mkdir ~/.fonts”,
“cp $dir/*.ttf ~/.fonts/”,
“fc-cache -fv ~/.fonts/”,
My http daemon (www-data) can now use my new fonts! Really cool.
The gotcha was that the Apache process had to be stopped and started for the change to take effect. NOT restarted. Stopped. And Started.
… Just a bit of feedback in case any of the other lucky folk finding this HOWTO are thinking of something similar.
PS. I’m non-affiliated, but I found thousands of easily browsable (free) fonts at http://www.creamundo.com/ FYI.
This is a great little “how to”, I’ll certainly be coming back to your blog if I need help with anything else
This is what I was looking for. really, great work. thanks alot
Thank you so much!
Useful & Practical - makes web design a lot easier when you see what the majority of people see. Thanks Carthik!
[...] http://ubuntu.wordpress.com/2005/09/09/installing-microsoft-fonts/ [...]
[...] fonte [...]
I’m getting a problem with some fonts. It may be the font itself or some type of curruption.
[...] Installing Windows Font(in Ubuntu) [...]
Mad props to you!
great stuff… great instructions…
Joao
[...] Ubuntu Blog Setze ein Online-Buchzeichen dieses Posts! interne Tags: Font, installieren, Microsoft, [...]
Excellente and really useful information…
keep on with the excellente work
[...] Cara Install Windows Font (Arial, Tahoma, Verdana, dsb) - http://ubuntu.wordpress.com/2005/09/09/installing-microsoft-fonts/ - [...]
Thank you, I’ve been wondering how to install random TTF fonts that I downloaded lol.
thank you. I wasn’t happy with the way the web looked with the default fonts in Ubuntu.
[...] installare aptgettando msttcorefonts - usare webFonts4Linux del prof. Vigna che si scarica i font direttamente (serve [...]
What about Calibri and other fonts that dont come with that package?
Thanks for the post.
[...] Original article: http://ubuntu.wordpress.com/2005/09/09/installing-microsoft-fonts/ [...]
[...] i used carthik’s ubuntu blog as reference and it also has instructions on how to install the fonts via the console. [...]
thanks for this how-to! works great.
I have found the font installer does not work. On Feisty and gutsy is fails at the download of andale.exe. It attempts to download then times out and moves to the next source and ends up going through all the sources and does not download then ends with an error message. On trying to remove the package it fails as well doing exactly what it did when it was trying to install the fonts.
So now I have a package I can;t remove, fix or use at all. Every tine I installa new package it goes through trying to install the fonts and fails.
Chris - I have been having the same problem as you. I havent found a way to fix it either.
Chris, Angel
Are you using a proxy to connect to the web?
My Synaptic failed with the same errors you describe, so I tried:
sudo env http_proxy=http://my.proxy.server:3128
apt-get install msttcorefonts
[...] Installing Microsoft Fonts [...]
Hmm, didn’t know MS made Times New Roman. Those bastards… well, that’s something I didn’t know since I’ve been using Windows 3.1 … hmm…
[...] Ecco il link con la procedura. [...]
thanx! i agree with joe
[...] Installing Microsoft True Type fonts in Ubuntu How to install Microsoft ttf font in ubuntu? [...]
Regarding #61 and #62, I’m using gutsy as well and I didn’t have problems installing it.
Hey . . . I’m on Ubuntu + OpenOffice right now, and they work great - but I have one MAJOR problem - the fonts are terrible. I want to install Bradley Hand ITC, but I don’t know how to do it. Any Help ?
Email me if you have any answers
Thanks for this one .. it is a really great option…i have about 1500 fonts that I can use but was not able to access them before..I love linux..bye bye windows.
[...] você queira o funcionamento das fontes em seu Linux, existem pacotes que instalam as padrões do [...]
Hi,
I’ve just installed fonts but i don’t see major differences when i select Times New Roman in firefox. They simply don’t look as good as they look in Windows. Is there an option to turn on true type / clear type?
Thanks.
Times New Roman in firefox looking bad, why?
Still having the same problems as #61 and #62.
the sourceforge.net just fails and times out.
Tried it with feisty, mint, and gutsy with the same results. There has to be a way to erase the config info so it does not keep trying to install the msttcorefonts every time you want to install something.
I am trying to run a program called “Steam.” According to some instructions I found, I need tahoma font. I am having difficultly with this, what can I do?
If you need to see the program go to steampowered.com
Thanks.
[...] offers a lot of fonts, in addition to the defaults installed, and the MicroSoft msttcorefonts package, in its repositories. All these fonts mentioned here are provided as packages, which can easily [...]
Спасибо за помощь! Всё работает!
Привет из Украины xD
[...] Ubuntu LAMP for Newbies MySQL Password Reset How to Share Files and Folders in Ubuntu Auto Login in Ubuntu Gadmintools (GPROFTPD) Getting Vista to Work with Samba Installing Microsoft Fonts [...]
perfect ubuntu rocks
Kellsie
traditional art, photography, poetry / prose. Art prints
if you’re looking for a guide on how to install any font in ubuntu, i found a good one here http://www.eha2.com/random-thoughts/installing-fonts-in-ubuntu/
great post, thanks!
Big Ass Fucking
Exchange: news, results, profiles & photo gallery from Channe
This is a very nice post! I love it! I now can use all of my fonts!!! I’m running Ubuntu 8.04 and it worked like a charm, Thanks for this!
[...] not looking so great, let me see I can do something about that. Followed the instructions from the Ubuntu Blog and installed windows fonts, also enabled anti-aliasing, looking decent [...]
[...] Reference: http://ubuntu.wordpress.com/2005/09/09/installing-microsoft-fonts [...]
[...] came across this while looking to make websites look better on Ubuntu. Installing Microsoft Fonts using the repository makes all the little font oddities on the web a thing of the past (well for [...]
Just what I was looking for
Many thanks