Computer font is a collection of data representing glyphs and characters, usually stored in files.
The term "font" and "typeface" come from the typography and calligraphy. The former refers to a set of shapes that have the same styles and sizes, and the later indicates a collection of one or more fonts in different sizes.
There are mainly two types of font: the bitmap font and vector font.
Characters of each style and of each size consists of matrix of dots or pixels. Because bitmaps cannot be scaled directly, fonts of a specified size can only clearly display in a fixed resolution. This, however, does not prevent Chinese characters to perform well in form of bitmap with size ranging from 12 to 16 px. Commonly used bitmap fonts are bdf, pcf, fnt and hbf.
Characters are described using Bezier curves, drawing directives and mathematical expression, so that they can be scaled to any size.
Sans-serif = Bold face (for Asian characters)
Serif = Light face (for Asian characters)
Monospace = All characters have a unique width
bdf and bdf.gz: Bitmap Distribution Format. A kind of bitmap font, compressed with gzip.
pcf and pcf.gz: Portable Compiled Format. A kind of bitmap font, compressed with gzip.
psf，psfu，psf.gz and psfu.gz: PC Screen Font. A kind of bitmap font, compressed with gzip. The Unicode version cannot be used on X.org.
pfa and pfb: PostScript Font, for ASCII or Binary. A kind of vector font, with print command included.
ttf: TrueType Font. A kind of vector font, replacing PostScript font.
otf: OpenType Font. A kind of TrueType font with print command included.
In most cases, the technical differences between TrueType and OpenType can be ignored. Some extended TrueType fonts are in fact OpenType fonts.
Double click a font file in the file manager, a window will appear for previewing the font. Click on "Install Font" to install it.
Execute in terminal:
sudo dde-file-manager /usr/share/fonts
and copy the font file to here.
You can also use packages provided in repository. For example, to install fonts of WenQuanYi series, execute in terminal:
sudo apt-get install xfonts-wqy
Where font files are stored:
Where font configurations are stored:
System configurations will not be used if any user configuration is found. For security and convenience concerns, it is recommended to use user configurations.
Install gnome tweak tool for further configurations. You may also modify the configuration file for a specific font.
To restore the default font configurations, execute in terminal:
rm -rf ~/.fonts.conf
Delete the font files will remove it from the system. You may also uninstall it using apt-get if it was installed from the repository.