How to locate a font in Ubuntu?

Question

Ubuntu desktop with 12.04 is about to crash. Installed 13.04 on a new machine, want to transfer Book Antiqua font from old machine to the new one. How do I find it on the old machine? My /usr directory is empty.

My fonts.conf file has these lines:

<!-- Font directory list -->
<dir>/usr/share/fonts</dir>
<dir>/usr/x11R6/lib/X11/fonts</dir> 
<dir>/usr/local/share/fonts</dir>
<dir>~/.fonts</dir>

Don't know what this means, but my /usr directory has nothing in it.

score 62 · Answer 1 · edited Oct 09 '16 at 07:40

62

I use fc-list command to view the list of fonts installed.

edited Oct 09 '16 at 07:40

Anwar

76,649

answered Sep 19 '16 at 05:00

Rpant

721

Hey, thanks. This was a really helpful one. Also, I guess *-list must be a really helpful command in general. – Fawkes4494d3 Jul 12 '17 at 23:09
6

fc-list | grep "<(partial) name of the font>" maybe handy – Adam Ryczkowski Feb 21 '18 at 11:35
Very useful for showing font properties as well, e.g. fc-list : family style file spacing, see docs. Properties are listed here. – djvg Nov 06 '20 at 13:40
@AdamRyczkowski Excellent! Don't forget everyone, this is case sensitive. Been killing myself until this answer. – Seek Truth Oct 21 '21 at 18:32

score 42 · Answer 2 · edited Oct 09 '16 at 07:40

42

Secret Locations:

The secret locations of your fonts whereabouts are defined in /etc/fonts/fonts.conf.
gedit /etc/fonts/fonts.conf
Standard Locations:
/usr/share/fonts
/usr/local/share/fonts
/home/<username>/.fonts #where <username> is your user name
Note that the .fonts folder is a hidden folder.

Source: Where Are Fonts Stored / Located In Ubuntu?

edited Oct 09 '16 at 07:40

Anwar

76,649

answered Oct 03 '13 at 19:16

Radu Rădeanu

169,590

12

Additionally to above: /home/<username>/.local/share/fonts – Rael Gugelmin Cunha Nov 26 '15 at 12:12
under Ubuntu 20.x that requires root privileges to see, i.e. sudo cat /etc/fonts/fonts.conf – Frank N Apr 29 '21 at 10:15

score 23 · Answer 3 · answered May 25 '14 at 20:08

23

I've found that fonts can be installed for Precise (12.04) and Trusty (14.04) in

~/.local/share/fonts

answered May 25 '14 at 20:08

ssmith

409

2

Now this is really surprising! This location is definitely not in my /etc/fonts/fonts.conf and even so all fonts I installed using Ubuntu's font viewer ended up there. – Chuim Feb 16 '15 at 10:55
Not "can", they "are" installed there when using the Font Viewer to install them. I am already spending hours on finding this location to get rid of a font. Pretty dull. – mondjunge Jun 02 '15 at 12:18
This doesn't actually work on 12.04. Use ~/.fonts instead. – Caleb Jul 01 '15 at 05:45

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 23 '21 at 20:55

To know where are fonts, ask Ubuntu in a terminal:

 whereis fonts

Sample reply:

 fonts: /etc/fonts /usr/share/fonts

The first path has the fonts.conf file which specifies font settings and other locations. The second one is what you are looking for as the default fonts system directory.

How to locate a font in Ubuntu?

4 Answers4

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