September 23rd, 2008

How To Make Your Ubuntu Fonts Look Nice

I touched on this topic in my first Ubuntu post last week but thought I would revisit it in a little more detail. I also plan on writing a tutorial that shows you how to skin Ubuntu and make it look sexy.

One of the big complaints (definitely one of my biggest) with Ubuntu is the fonts. I have noticed that I am getting a lot of Google traffic from people searching about Ubuntu fonts. This tells me that other people don’t like the default Ubuntu fonts either. Lets face it, they are bulky and ugly.

In my other post I mentioned how to install windows fonts on your machine but I didn’t go into how to setup your system fonts and how to install fonts from other sources. So today I will address these issues.

Installing Windows Fonts On Ubuntu

Firstly, I recommend that you install Windows fonts if you have not already. They look good and Trebuchet makes a nice system font. Use the following command to install them in the terminal:

sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts

There we go, you are now all set up with windows fonts. Websites will also now render nicely with the Windows fonts.

How To Install Other Fonts

There are a ton of awesome free fonts available on the web. One of my favorite sources is DaFont.com. Now, you may want to install these extra fonts to use on your system or even in graphics when using GIMP. But, how do you install them? It is extremely simple.

Firstly navigate to your /home/ folder and press ctrl+h. You will notice that a bunch of new folders appear. These are all hidden folders. Find the folder called .fonts and simply paste the .ttf font files that you downloaded into this folder. Bam, you now have fresh fonts to use.

Setting Up Your System Fonts

Setting up my system fonts made the biggest difference to the Ubuntu feel for me. It made it so much cleaner and nicer to look at. Changing your system fonts is easy, navigate to (on your menu bar):

System > Preferences > Appearance > Fonts

From this menu you can change the different default fonts that Ubuntu uses such as Application fonts, Document fonts, Title fonts etc. Play around with these settings to find fonts that you like. I stuck with using Trebuchet (size 10 – except for Titles I used size 9 bolded) for all my fonts and it looks pretty decent.

Also mess around with the font Rendering settings. I chose to use Monochrome Rendering, No Smoothing and Full Hinting to give the fonts a more crisp look. I’m not the biggest fan of smooth fonts