[techtalk] Font confusion

[Deb Richardson]

Ingrid Schupbach wrote:
> 
> Ack.
> 
> I have spent the past hour trying to figure out how to give myself more
> font options in gimp.  Currently I only have 4 fonts.  I went to gimp.org
> and downloaded a big file of fonts, and I unzipped and untarred it, but I
> have no clue where to put it.  Do I put it in some .gimp directory?  Some
> .gnome directory?  I can't seem to find where my fonts live.

Adding fonts is still a bit of a pain.  I added a bunch of TrueType
fonts to my RH6.0 system by putting the *.ttf/*.TTF files in:

/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/webfonts/

That isn't quite all you have to do, however...there are two utilities
that you have to run as well...ttmkfdir and mkfontdir.

An old HOWTO is available here:

http://www.sfu.ca/~yzhang/linux/truetype/

If you're running RH 6.0 you already have all the utilities
installed...the font server should be installed and running (assuming
you've done a fairly standard installation).  Here's the basic procedure
that works for me (note: likely only works on RH6.0 or better):

0.  Get root
1.  Put all your *.ttf files in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/webfonts/
2.  cd to the webfonts directory if you're not already there
3.  run ttmkfdir and stick the output in a file called fonts.scale using
a command like the following:
       /usr/sbin/ttmkfdir > fonts.scale
4.  in the same directory run mkfontdir with:
       mkfontdir
5.  log out of your x session and startx again
6.  start GIMP and check the font list or, alternately, type
"xlsfonts" in a normal user shell...this will list all of the fonts
currently being used by your x session (this won't work in a rootshell
and you'll get an error)

Notes: ttmkfdir won't necessarily like all of the fonts you have in the
directory and may produce some error messages.  There's not a lot you
can do about this...some font files just don't have all the information
that's needed to do this properly.  Those fonts mentioned in the error
messages won't be used by the font server.  

This also only deals with TrueType font support.

If you have problems with my procedure, let me know.  This is mostly off
the top of my head, but it should work.  I'm going to turn this into a
mini-HOWTO at some point, so if there are inaccuracies, I need to know
about them :>

- deb

-- 
deb at thepuffingroup.com
deb at linuxchix.org
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