How to Download, Install, and Use Google Fonts on Ubuntu

Ubuntu is one of the best open source operating systems on the market today. It offers a true software ecosystem that provides a variety of premium services, which you would normally expect only on Windows or macOS.

For this purpose, Ubuntu provides you with a default cache of widely used fonts for various typographic purposes. Nonetheless, users can use some of the highest quality Google Fonts on Ubuntu. for different word processing purposes. Here’s how.

Download and install Google Fonts on Ubuntu

To manually install Google Fonts on Ubuntu, the first step is to download the fonts directly from fonts.google.com.

Select the font family you want to download. For the purposes of this guide, we’re going to download the Open Sans font. Click on the Download family button in the upper right corner.

A compressed archive containing the required fonts will be downloaded to your machine. The idea is to unzip this downloaded file and install the fonts through your Linux terminal.

Navigate to the folder for preinstalled fonts on your computer.

cd /usr/share/fonts

Create a folder in the directory using the mkdir order.

sudo mkdir googlefonts

Navigate to the new googlefonts folder with the cd command.

cd googlefonts

Unzip the ZIP archive containing the fonts you need to install.

sudo unzip -d . ~/Downloads/Open_Sans.zip

Once the archive is unzipped, save the font with the following command:

sudo fc-cache -fv

Finally, check if the font was installed successfully by typing:

fc-match OpenSans

That’s it; you are ready to start using the font now.

Related: The Best Websites For Creating Your Own Custom Fonts

Install Google Fonts on Ubuntu using TypeCatcher

As demonstrated above, you can download and install any font you want directly from the web on Ubuntu. However, Google offers several fonts for various use cases.

These fonts are available in condensed, bold, italic, and clear formats, so you can download and install them all at once. However, it would be better to get TypeCatcher for easier installation.

How to install and use TypeCatcher

TypeCatcher, as a font repository, downloads and installs a variety of fonts on Linux systems. This is a very nifty application to have in your directory, in case you frequently use Ubuntu for word processing and graphic design.

It is easier to install TypeCatcher from the terminal. First, launch terminal and update your existing packages using the following command:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Now to install TypeCatcher run the following command:

sudo apt install typecatcher

When done, close the terminal and launch TypeCatcher from the Applications menu. Once TypeCatcher is launched, you can view the available fonts listed in the left pane.

As soon as you click on the desired font on the left, you will get a preview of the font on the right panel. This will make it easier for you, as you will be able to preview any font you want before installing it.

Once you have selected a particular font type, click the button To download button in the upper left corner. You can also search for fonts by name to quickly locate them in TypeCatcher.

To make it even easier, you can batch select Google Fonts for Ubuntu and configure them to install in an automated sequence.

To test the fonts, use them on LibreOffice or any word processing application you have installed on your system. Recently downloaded Google Fonts should be available in the Font List for each installed text processor.

Related: How To Find Free Fonts Similar To Paid Fonts

Working with new fonts in Ubuntu

TypeCatcher has a small footprint and a dynamic font library inherited from Google. If you don’t want to limit yourself to preinstalled Linux native fonts, rest assured that you will be quite happy with the multitude of fonts available for free on TypeCatcher and the Google Fonts website.

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