True Type font installation

[Losgann]

Hello, I'm fairly new to Linux (a few months) and brand new to Linux Mint -- I've just installed Elyssa XFCE CE and am very impressed. I've tried out at least a dozen different distros, and Linux Mint is by far the best out of all of them. This is the first time I've used XFCE, though, and while I love how light and fast it is, I can't figure out how to do a couple of things.

First, in my panels, I can only seem to move icons, applets, etc. to the left or right of each other, but everything is still arranged in a line starting from the left corner. I can't seem to, for example, put the XFCE menu in the left corner and the clock in the right corner, the way you can in Gnome or KDE. Is this possible in XFCE?

Second, and more importantly, I have some True Type fonts that I like to use, but I can't figure out how to install them. I have an Ubuntu book which says to create a folder ~/.fonts and put the fonts into that folder, which I did, but after logging out & in again, the fonts still aren't showing up in my applications.

Any help would be much appreciated!

[merlwiz79]

There is a True Type font installer that I created for this.
When you select User as the install method it installs to ~/.fonts.
Then runs this command fc-cache ~/.fonts.
After that you just need to restart the apps you want to use it in.(examples: inkscape, gimp openoffice)

Right click move works fine for me.
Not sure what you are saying.
I can right click and move the Xfce menu all the way to the right on the default panel.
It also works with the time as well.

[Losgann]

There is a True Type font installer that I created for this.

Where is this available? I didn't see such a thing in Synaptic.

After that you just need to restart the apps you want to use it in.(examples: inkscape, gimp openoffice)

On that note, I did download some TTF fonts via Synaptic, but they don't show up in Open Office. They do, however show up as options in other apps such as Scribus and the terminal. What could cause that?

Right click move works fine for me. Not sure what you are saying. I can right click and move the Xfce menu all the way to the right on the default panel. It also works with the time as well.

I took a couple of screenshots to show you what I mean. Here is my panel:

All the icons are arranged in a row in the left corner. Now for an example, when I right click on the "show desktop" icon and try to move it to the right corner, this is what I get:

It will not go to the right corner of the panel, but only as far right as the row of icons goes. I can only move the various icons and applets in the panel to the left or right of each other, but everything is always still in a row in the left corner. I cannot move anything to the center or right of the panel, nor can I move the position of the whole row of icons as a group to anywhere other than the left corner.

[merlwiz79]

I thought you meant you where installing them manually, not with debian packages.
You are missing the Task List panel item.

[Dwood]

To move the items to the far right you need to add a spacer to the panel -
right click > add new item > spacer or separator

everything to the right of the separator will be pushed to the far right.

[Losgann]

I thought you meant you where installing them manually, not with debian packages.
You are missing the Task List panel item.

Sorry for the confusion -- I have done both. I have some TTF fonts on a USB flash drive which I manually copied into the ~/.fonts folder, and also installed some other TTF fonts from the repositories via Synaptic.

After some further poking around, it seems that all the fonts are in fact present and available in most applications, just not, for some reason, in the word processors -- I've tried both OpenOffice and AbiWord, and in both programs several of the TTF fonts, both some of the ones I installed manually and some of the ones I installed via Synaptic, are missing from the drop-down menu to select the font. I have no idea why this should be so. Any ideas? Are there any other word processing apps I could try?

To move the items to the far right you need to add a spacer to the panel -
right click > add new item > spacer or separator
everything to the right of the separator will be pushed to the far right.

Thanks for that tip -- I played around a bit and it turned out that by adding one of those spacers on both the left and right sides, my panel icons are now nicely centered!

[merlwiz79]

I can install font to /.fonts and it will show in OpenOffice.
Have you tried running

Code: Select all

fc-cache $HOME/.fonts

[Losgann]

I can install font to /.fonts and it will show in OpenOffice.
Have you tried running

Code: Select all

fc-cache $HOME/.fonts

I did try

Code: Select all

fc-cache ~/.fonts

but it didn't change anything... is this the same thing, or should I retry it with $HOME/.fonts rather than ~/.fonts?

[merlwiz79]

You could try deleting the folder ~/.fontconfig
Then try

Code: Select all

fc-cache $HOME/.fonts

Yes fc-cache ~/.fonts should be the same.
You could even try typing it all out fc-cache /home/USER_NAME/.fonts

Do you have a link to the font you are trying to install?
Might just be a corrupt download.