How to install Arial font (and other Windows fonts) in ubuntu?

Question

How to install Arial font in Ubuntu?

I found many ways to install fonts in Ubuntu but I didn't find any proper way or method to install (particularly) Arial fonts in Ubuntu.

Solution 1

Simply run

sudo apt install ttf-mscorefonts-installer
sudo fc-cache -f

in a terminal.

After that, check with

fc-match Arial

Solution 2

I have been getting LiberationSans-Regular.ttf: "Liberation Sans" "Regular" for sudo fc-match Arial

So I tried following to make it work :

1) Create directory to download fonts to: sudo mkdir ~/ms-fonts/

2) cd ~/ms-fonts/

3) Download fonts manually :

wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/andale32.exe
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/arial32.exe
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/arialb32.exe
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/comic32.exe
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/courie32.exe
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/georgi32.exe
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/impact32.exe
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/times32.exe
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/trebuc32.exe
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/verdan32.exe
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/webdin32.exe

4) sudo dpkg-reconfigure ttf-mscorefonts-installer and follow instructions. When asked, use full path to directory where fonts were downloaded i.e. /home/root2/ms-fonts/

5) sudo fc-cache

6) Check if installation is done successfully or not : sudo fc-match Arial

Hope this helps.

Solution 3

Since the ttf-mscorefonts-installer mechanism mentioned in the accepted answer is still broken in Ubuntu 18.04 and I could not find a suitable mirror server for it to fix it, I propose to use this manual mechanism instead to install the very same fonts:

1. Install cabextract, a tool needed to unpack self-extracting .exe archives:

   sudo apt install cabextract
   

2. Download the font package provided via this page (also note the EULA there):

   wget https://www.freedesktop.org/software/fontconfig/webfonts/webfonts.tar.gz
   

3. Unpack, twice:

   tar -xzf webfonts.tar.gz
   cd msfonts/
   cabextract *.exe
   

4. Move the fonts to your user's directory for installing additional fonts:

   cp *.ttf *.TTF ~/.local/share/fonts/
   

5. Restart the software in which you want to use the fonts, and they should be ready to use.

Solution 4

The ttf-mscorefonts package mentioned in the other answers contains a very limited selection of fonts, and rather outdated versions of them.

To get a better selection of up-to-date fonts, you can instead rip them from a Windows installation. Microsoft itself provides free virtual machine images of Win 10, ostensibly for "testing sites on MS Edge", which you can use for this.

Distributing fonts obtained this way is probably illegal, but using them yourself may or may not be be fine.

1. Get an image here, select "MSEdge on Windows 10", for "VirtualBox".

2. unzip MSEdge.Win10.VirtualBox.zip - this might take a while

3. tar -xf 'MSEdge - Win10.ova' - this might take a while

4. sudo apt install libguestfs-tools
   sudo mkdir /mnt/foo
   sudo guestmount -a 'MSEdge - Win10-disk001.vmdk' -i --ro /mnt/foo
   sudo cp -r /mnt/foo/Windows/Fonts/ .
   sudo umount /mnt/foo
   sudo rm -r /mnt/foo
   sudo mv Fonts WindowsFonts
   

Now you should have a WindowsFonts directory in the current directory, containing all the fonts you want.

• To install them for all users, copy it to /usr/local/share/fonts.

• To install it just for yourself, run sudo chown -R "$USER:$USER" WindowsFonts to change the owner to yourself, then copy the directory to ~/.local/share/fonts/.

Solution 5

I search for a solution for similar problems when preparing the docker file.

When you install fonts with the same command:

DEBIAN_FRONTEND="noninteractive" apt-get -y ttf-mscorefonts-installer

A license agreement is not applied and Arial and other fonts are not installed!

You can use this solution:

echo "ttf-mscorefonts-installer msttcorefonts/accepted-mscorefonts-eula select true" | debconf-set-selections
apt-get install -y ttf-mscorefonts-installer

And you can check the result with the command:

fc-match Arial 

View more solutions

Comments

[A.B.]

sudo apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer

[Edward Torvalds]

you can simple download those files and extract and move all .ttf files to ~/.local/share/fonts directory

[Edward Torvalds]

btw the above answer did not work on elementary os 0.4.1 based on ubuntu 16.04

[MAPK]

This works on Ubuntu 18.04. Just before you run cp *.ttf *.TTF ~/.local/share/fonts/, make sure you create or have /font directory there.

[jfaccioni]

Working on Ubuntu 19.04 in as well.

[MERose]

Can't confirm this answer for Ubuntu 19.04

[user2942]

sudo apt install fontconfig for sudo fc-cache -f and fc-match Ariel commands.

[Admin]

The only method that works for me on Ubuntu 22.04