Introduction

It is a fairly common experience for Linux users to see most of the text of a web site displayed in a monospaced font, usually with a size that is clearly mismatched w.r.t. the page. The problem (as explained in the Xfree86 Font Deuglification Mini-HOWTO, is that many sites use Microsoft's Web Core Fonts, a collection of high-quality TrueType fonts specifically hinted for low resolutions. They include versions of some common fonts (such as Times and Courier) plus many other fonts (such as Verdana, Impact, etc.). Another plus is that these fonts use a rather wide character set, that covers a few hundred Unicode codepoints.

For once, however, there is a positive side: Microsoft distributed these fonts at no charge for some time, and anyone can use them. Unfortunately, strong redistribution restrictions makes it impossible to put together a tarball or a package containing these fonts. Moreover, Microsoft recently stopped distribution of the fonts through its web site.

The solution is webFonts.sh, a simple shell script that downloads the fonts for you from a mirror and installs them. The script tries to be installation independent. Just download it and execute it (chmod 755 webFonts.sh; ./webFonts.sh). Of course, feedback about problems on specific distributions is more than welcome.

The script needs cabextract, a tool that unzips CAB files. Here you can find a tarball, an RPM and a Debian package for it. Newer archives could be found at the cabextract home page, or on the Debian site.

The script needs also wget, but it comes with most (if not all) distributions, so you should not have any difficulty to find it.

Last but not least, to use these fonts you must have TrueType support enabled; the Xfree86 Font Deuglification Mini-HOWTO explains you how to do that.

Installation

Just run the script. You can choose the directory where the fonts will be installed. Depending on your proficiency with X, X font servers, etc. you may want to just download the fonts somewhere and then install them, or let the script do everything.

If the installation is successful, it is a good idea to change the default fonts of your browser to some of the new ones (which are easily distinguishable by the foundry, "monotype").