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FAQ - Frequently asked questions about fonts
| What are TrueType fonts? | TrueType is an outline font standard originally developed by Apple Computer in the late 1980s.
The primary strength of TrueType was originally that it offered font developers a high degree of
control over precisely how their fonts are displayed, right down to particular pixels, at various font heights.
Most downloadable fonts from this website are TrueType fonts.
(Source: en.wikipedia.org)
| | How to install a font in Windows: | Windows supports TrueType fonts or fonts that are specially designed for Windows, and these fonts are available commercially. Some programs also include special fonts that are installed as part of the program installation. Additionally, printers frequently come with TrueType or special Windows fonts. Follow the directions that come with these products to install these fonts.
To manually install or re-install a font:
| 1. |
Click Start, and then click Run. |
| 2. |
Type %windir%\fonts, and then click OK. |
| 3. |
On the File menu, click Install New Font. |
| 4. |
In the Drives box, click the drive that has the floppy or CD-ROM that contains the fonts you want to add. If you are installing fonts from a floppy disk, this is typically drive A or drive B. If you are installing the fonts from a compact disc, your CD-ROM drive is typically drive D. Double-click the folder that contains the fonts. |
| 5. |
Click the font you want to add. To select more than one font at a time, press and hold down the CTRL key while you click each font. |
| 6. |
Click to select the Copy Fonts To Fonts Folder check box. The Windows\Fonts folder is where the fonts that are included with Windows are stored. |
| 7. |
Click OK. |
| | Where are the fonts on the hard disk of my computer? | Windows stores fonts in the folder C:\WINDOWS\FONTS. Newer versions of Linux use /usr/share/fonts.
| | How to install fonts in Linux: | This tutorial describes how to install TrueType fonts
on Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 (etch). In other Linux distributions like
Redhat/Fedora or SuSE it works in a similar way.
Before you begin you should verify that the programs
"ttmkfdir" und "mkfontdir" are installed.
An X-windows system is also necessary.
If not get them with "apt-get install ttmkfdir"
You will need fontconfig as well ("apt-get install fontconfig").
In Linux fonts are often stored in /usr/share/fonts or /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts.
If /usr/share/fonts is your main font directory, the TrueType fonts for X would go into /usr/share/fonts/truetype.
It is possible, though not recommended, to store fonts anywhere in the system.
When you want to use Microsofts TrueType fonts on your Linux box, you can install the package "msttcorefonts".
The non-free repository has to be enabled in /etc/apt/sources.list.
Just enter "apt-get install msttcorefonts" to install and configure the fonts automatically.
Manuell installation of fonts will be descibed below:
Unpack your TrueType fonts and copy them to /usr/local/fonts/ttf.
Then "cd" to /usr/local/fonts/ttf and create the fonts.scale and fonts.dir files with
"ttmkfdir -o fonts.scale" and "mkfontdir".
Now you have to tell the program "fontconfig", that is used by many modern Linux applications,
where to look for the newly installed fonts.
Create a new file "/etc/fonts/local.conf" and append the following lines to it:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
<dir>/usr/local/fonts/ttf</dir>
</fontconfig>
Call "fc-list" to check if the new fonts were recognized by the system.
If this ist the case all applications that are capable
of handling TrueType fonts can use the new fonts from now on.
| | How to use TrueType fonts under Linux: | Under Linux TrueType fonts can be used in all applications which support them. OpenOffice ist only one of them.
A nice possibility is, to useTrueType fonts from within scripts that run on a webserver,
in order to dynamically create logos on the fly.
Code example in PHP:
<?php
header ("Content-type: image/jpeg");
$im = @ImageCreate (400,200) or die ("no GD-Image-Stream available");
$bg_color = ImageColorAllocate ($im, 200, 200, 200);
$txt_color = ImageColorAllocate ($im, 255,255,0);
imagettftext($im,
40,
15,
25,
175,
$txt_color,"/usr/share/fonts/msfonts/HeNB.TTF",
$_SERVER["HTTP_HOST"]);
imagejpeg ($im);
imagedestroy($im);
?>
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