Installing fonts

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One may install Linux user fonts using a variety of methods. They can be made available systemwide, to be accessible to core GUI resources such as KDE or GNOME. More commonly, users only install fonts so they can be used by product-making applications including Inkscape and OpenOffice.org.

Inkscape's way of installing fonts is hardly any different than the installing of fonts on any other program. Essentially, one has to download whatever fonts one would like and place them in the default font directory. Many Linux distributions will allow installing a font by double-clicking on the file, which will then install/copy the font into the correct directory for you.

If your operating system does not offer this comfortable way of installing fonts, these hints may help you:

Truetype fonts are installed by placement of the files into the /usr/share/fonts/ttf directory (or C:\WINDOWS\FONTS for Windows types).

- mv ~/downloads/*.ttf /usr/share/fonts/ttf

It is advisable that the font cache file be deleted in the process. This file is fonts.cache-1, located in /usr/share/fonts (or C:\WINDOWS\FONTS for Windows types). After font files have been transferred to the default font directory, delete this fonts.cache-1 file and the .fonts.cache-1 file in your home directory (or "My Documents" directory for Windows types).

- rm -f /usr/share/fonts/*fonts.cache-1
- rm -f ~/*fonts.cache-1

Once done doing this, you need to rebuild your font cache files (only if you are using Linux or some other OS for which font caches are used) so other programs can effectively use the fonts. Do this by going to your default font directory (/usr/share/fonts) and typing as root:

- fc-cache

Installing without admin rights

On most Linux distributions, there is a directory called .fonts in your home directory. You can install fonts only for yourself by copying them there. This does not require admin rights.

Previously, GNOME's Nautilus file browser had a special location called fonts:/// which could be used to install fonts. After the migration to GVFS, this no longer works, but may be re-added some time in the future.

Easier method on Windows

Probably the easiest method of installing fonts on Windows is to drag or copy them from where you have saved them to the Fonts folder. This is found by going to Control Panel > Fonts or opening the C:\WINDOWS\Fonts folder in explorer.

If the fonts are in a zip, rar, 7z or similar archive, you may need to unpack this first.