Adding fonts to Ubuntu

The generic Ubuntu comes with a couple of dozen fonts, most of which are simple variations of serif and sans serif. Adequate if all you want to do is type up documents; not so adequate if you want to be doing moderately serious graphics work.

To beef up your arsenal, you can download Truetype Fonts from several sources on the web. I recommend Web Design from Scratch to start from.

But how do you install the fonts into Ubuntu?

Actually, it's pretty simple. All you have to do is copy the TTF files into a subdirectory called .fonts in your home directory. .fonts is a hidden directory so it might not show up in file browser unless you enable it to show hidden files.

If you haven't already done so, create the subdirectory in your home directory:

cd ~

mkdir .fonts

If the Truetype fonts you downloaded are still zipped, unzip them first

unzip MyDownloadedFont.zip

Then move or copy the TTF file into the .font directory:

mv MyDownloadedFont.ttf ~/.fonts