MS True Type Fonts

English Applications
1

What is the best way for me to acquire MS True Type Fonts in Tumbleweed?

2

There’s a package available in the standard repos called fetchmsttfonts which will download and install a set of common MS fonts (after having you accept an EULA).

2 Likes
3

Thank you!

4

Please, be aware that the “ms core fonts” provided by the fetchmsttfontspackage are absolutely obsolete fonts that have not been updated since the late nineties, so don’t even try to install them, they are useless. They have the same names as fonts that are still distributed in MS products (Times New Roman, Arial, etc.), but the design and metrics they offer have absolutely nothing to do with modern fonts.

Also don’t bother with “compatible” fonts like Liberation, etc., which may have metrics (not so the design) that look a bit more like modern versions, but they don’t offer any advanced OpenType features (ligatures, accent positioning, etc.), so they’re not worth it.

There are lots of high quality opensource fonts out there. If you actually need to use a specific comercial font, the only option is to buy it from its makers.

1 Like
5

Obviously you don’t collaborate with many Windows users, nor have experienced the frustration in doing such. I really wanted to say thank you for the tutelage, but can’t get past the bad taste of your opine being entirely unhelpful.
Curious, how does a TT Font bitmap “obsoletes” over time (e.g., Times New Roman)?
Please expound if you’d like, I’m all ears…

6

@argentwolf If you open a recent office document produced with a modern version of Times New Roman on a system which only have the old version of Times New Roman provided by the fetchmsttfonts package, you’ll get a broken document where text distribution, line spacing, diacritics, etc., will be completely different / non functional / wrong compared with the original document. You may even get missing characters. fetchmsttfonts will not help you to interact with windows users because what you see in the document will be different from what they see. If you need to exchange documents with other users in a professional environment, you need to agree in the fonts used, and that may mean to buy the actual, modern, windows fonts: there’s no workaround for that.

Those old fonts are now obsolete in the sense that new documents that rely on typographic ligatures, diacritic positioning, and any other modern OpenType feature will behave in different ways depending on the font version you have installed.

3 Likes
7

I stumbled across the following – <Better Microsoft Office fonts compatibility on Linux>

At least on Leap 15.5, the Google Caladea and Carlito fonts are pulled in by the Pattern RPM “patterns-fonts-fonts”.
In addition the Carlito fonts are pulled in by the LibreOffice package.
Zypper search package information text –

  • Caladea → Sans-serif Font Metrics-compatible with Cambria
  • Carlito → Sans-serif Font Metrics-compatible with Calibri

Please note that, Caledea has a Package description typing error – it’s a Serif Font … :smiling_imp:

8

Technically you can copy the .ttf-files from C:/Windows/Fonts on a Win10/11 install and paste it to /usr/share/fonts, /usr/local/share/fonts or if you want to just access it from a specific user into the .fonts-folder of the respective home directory of your Linux install.

I just want to say that these fonts (e.g. Calibri) and their usage might be licensed. I am not a copyright specialist but from what I read you are allowed to use it under Linux if you payed for it (e.g. bought the laptop with Windows on it, dualboot, etc.).

But again, I have no legal knowledge about such things. This information is without any warranty and just the outcome of what I read on the www.

After copying you can force a rebuild of the fonts cache with
fc-cache -f -v

1 Like
9

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.