Whether you work with the GIMP to create graphical content, OpenOffice to write documents, or anything in between, chances are that you will need to supplement the basic installed fonts on your Ubuntu system. There are a couple ways to go about this. If you don’t alrady have a font to install you can use Synatcic or apt to search for and install one.
Open System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager and do a search for ttf. This is the TrueType file extension but it can also be used for other types such as FreeType. This should net you a ton of useful fonts results to install.
Alternatively you can use apt.
sudo apt-cache search ttf
sudo apt-get install <font package name>
A wide variety of fonts can also be found across the internet from various sources. If you downloaded a specific font, or have a collection of fonts you would like to install, follow these steps.
If you want the font available to only your user.
Make a “.fonts” directory within your home directory.
mkdir ~/.fonts
Copy your font(s) to this directory.
cp font.ttf ~/.fonts
If you want to make the font accessible to all users.
The system fonts are stored in /usr/share/fonts, make a sub-directory within this for your personal fonts.
sudo chmod mkdir /usr/share/fonts/myfonts
Copy all your fonts to this directory.
sudo cp <font-name.ttf> /usr/share/fonts/myfonts
Change the permissions on the files so the system can use them.
sudo chmod -R 755 /usr/share/fonts/myfonts/*
Now update the system cache.
sudo fc-update -fv
Your fonts should now be available to all your programs. If a program was open while you were installing a font you may have to restart it in order to access the new fonts.