Install and configure Hindi fonts in Linux

It’s a short howto to install True Type Fonts in Linux. In this particular case, I want to install Hindi fonts in my CentOS 5.0 box.

Step 1. Download Hindi (.ttf) fonts from Internet. One location to find: http://tdil.mit.gov.in/download/openfonts.htm

Step 2. If you downloaded zip/tar, extract it in a directory where you want to store the fonts, for example: /usr/share/fonts/hindifonts
# mkdir -p /usr/share/fonts/hindifonts
# cd /usr/share/fonts/hindifonts

–> download the tar/zip file from net. here just the example
# unzip examplehindifonts.zip
# rm examplehindifonts.zip

Step 3. Make sure the all files (fonts) names are in lower case. If you found mixed case or not sure, run this command:
# for i in * ; do [ -f $i ] && mv -i $i `echo $i | tr ‘[A-Z]‘ ‘[a-z]‘`; done;

Step 4. Edit xfs config file so that system can find the fonts stored in our directory:
# vi /etc/X11/fs/config
–> Add a new line, you can see the bold line added here for directory created above–
catalogue = /usr/share/X11/fonts/misc:unscaled,
/usr/share/X11/fonts/75dpi:unscaled,
/usr/share/X11/fonts/100dpi:unscaled,
/usr/share/X11/fonts/Type1,
/usr/share/X11/fonts/TTF,
/usr/share/fonts/default/Type1,
/usr/local/share/fonts/hindifonts,

Step 5. Set the directory as font container:
# ttmkfdir -o fonts.scale
# mkfontdir
# fc-cache

Step 6. Restart you xfs server or X-Windows to make these changes effective.
# /etc/init.d/xfs restart

3 Responses to “Install and configure Hindi fonts in Linux”

  1. good stuff.. but I’m not able see fonts in my fonts list in oowriter. Is the article KDE based only as im using GNome?

  2. Ganapathi SJ on May 14th, 2009 at 4:36 pm

    Yup… It is really useful stuff. If your system is not supporting “ttmkfdir” then try “mkfontscale”.

  3. good work

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