Install MS True Type Fonts

On Windows, True Type fonts are pre-installed. For RedHat Linux:

1. Make sure the following rpm packages are installed. (Any version should do.)

   rpm-build

   wget {a package that provides the ttmkfdir utility}

   For example:

   • For Fedora Core and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, ttmkfdir
   • For old redhat releases, XFree86-font-utils
   • For mandrake-8.2, freetype-tools

2. Install the cabextract utility.
   • For users of Fedora Core it is available from extras.
   • Others may want to compile it themselves from source, or download the source rpm from fedora extras and rebuild.
   • If you don't have an rpm-based distribution, compile the tool to extract the .ttf files from the .exe files, cabextract from the source files at http://www.cabextract.org.uk/

3. Download the latest msttcorefonts spec file

   http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/msttcorefonts-2.0-1.spec

4. If you haven't done so already, set up an rpm build environment in your home directory:

   a. Edit $HOME/.rpmmacros

   b. Add the line %_topdir %(echo $HOME)/rpmbuild

   c. Create the directories $HOME/rpmbuild/BUILD and $HOME/rpmbuild/RPMS/noarch

5. Build the binary rpm:

   rpmbuild -bb msttcorefonts-2.0-1.spec

   This command downloads the fonts from a Sourcforge mirror, and repackages them so that they can be easily installed.

6. Install the newly built rpm as the root user:

   rpm -ivh $HOME/rpmbuild/RPMS/noarch/msttcorefonts-2.0-1.noarch.rpm

Considerations

• You might need to reload the X font server. Normally this is done as a part of the installation process (by chkfontpath). However in some situations it seems like you need to reload or restart the font server manually. (On Mandrake 9.0, the last argument needs to be restart rather than reload.)

/sbin/service xfs reload

• A bug in RedHat 8.0 makes the X server lose the connection to the font server if the font server is restarted instead of reloaded. producing assorted strange behaviors (changed fonts in newly opened applications, applications hanging). Logging out and logging in again solves the problems, or just use 'reload' instead of 'restart'.}}

Finally, verify that the installation succeeded:

xlsfonts | grep ^-microsoft

You should see a whole lot of microsoft font names there. Please note that you need to restart all programs that you want to make aware of the new fonts. Note also that not all fonts have 'microsoft' in their name, some of them will be from 'monotype' instead

Learn more: An easy way to install Microsoft's True Type core fonts on Linux