Dec

7

Font Management for Ubuntu Linux

December 7, 2009 | By: UbuntuLinuxHelp | 6 Comments
Posted in Applications

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As someone whose business also provides web development and graphic design, among other services, it was a real treat to bump into this font management gem (a few hours ago) "Fonty Python".

As the name implies, it's a python based application used to manage fonts - Great if you have a lot of fonts that you'd like to manage and preview. The first thing that grabbed my attention was that users can create what the developer calls "pogs", as the developer indicates, the name comes from "tyPOGraphy". In general, I can create a pog which filters a listing for just the fonts used on that site (I think Mac does something similar with font management?).

Fonty Python Screenshot

Best of all (for me at least), I found it's really easy to install and use.

Installing is as simple as the terminal command:

sudo aptitude install fontypython or Firefox users can click the apt link: apt://fontypython

Once installed, creating a "pog" is easy. I created one called ac2a.com (in the screenshot below) by clicking the "New Pog" button and following along.

Adding fonts - Fonty Python

To add fonts to the pog:

1) Use the left side "Source Folders" to surf to the directory containing the fonts.

2) On the right side panel, click to activate the pog (you want to add fonts to),

3) In the middle panel select your fonts by clicking on them and then (when you're done) click the "Put..." button (at the bottom).

Now when I need to go back and look at which fonts were included in a logo, web site, etc. I don't have to look through source files, CSS files, etc.

Font Python screen shot viewing pog contents

If you need to remove a font from one of the pogs you created, simple select the pog and font as seen the the screen shot below:

Screenshot remove font from pog in Fonty Python

From the developers site, it's indicated that once you surf your folders and select a font to add to any particular pog, it will automatically install the font for you, placing it in the ~/.fonts folder - I great feature!

Another way this can be used (I think) is to avoid installing an excessive number of fonts, just the ones you want.

Finally, one thing I do hope is that Fonty Python develops extensions so that "pog" can have their fonts automatically included in any "pog project" when using tools such as Gimp, Inkscape, Blender, and so on.

Hope some of you enjoy this post. Suggestions, other ideas? - Please feel free to comment below.

Cheers!

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Comments

6 Comments so far

  1. Donn Donn on December 8, 2009 1:28 pm

    Hi, I’m the guilty party (the developer) :)

    From your description above I suspect you might not be seeing the entire picture. Here’s a rundown:

    1. You make ‘Pogs’ in order to group fonts (ttf, ttc, otf and type1) so that you can install them and remove them on the fly.
    2. Once you’ve put fonts into a Pog, you select the Pog(s) you want to use and then press the ‘Install’ button.
    3. The fonts will now be available to other apps (like Inkscape*) because they get linked into your ~/.fonts directory.
    4. When you are done, you fire-up Fonty again and uninstall the Pog(s) you no longer need. This does not remove any font files and it does not destroy the Pog, it only removes the links to the font files from ~/.fonts — effectively making those fonts “go away” from the pov of the system.

    * Some apps like Blender don’t even bother with ‘installed’ or ‘system’ fonts. When you choose a font in Blender it plonks you into a file-chooser and you go look for a font file. However, nothing stops you from pointing it at ~/.fonts, so you can still use Fonty to switch the right fonts in and out.

    Hope this helps clarify things. Please go get the latest version from https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/fontypython/ — it’s easy to install (read the readme) and it has a lot of improvements.

    \d

  2. UbuntuLinuxHelp UbuntuLinuxHelp on December 8, 2009 2:23 pm

    @Donn

    Thanks this is even better!

    Appreciate the clarification – Have a good one!

    :)

  3. uniquegeek uniquegeek on January 25, 2010 11:45 pm

    Thanks for a mention of the ~/.fonts folder; you came up on a google search. It helped me toast a version of Helvetica which looked horrible in web browsers.

  4. HowtoMatrix HowtoMatrix on February 7, 2010 1:42 am

    [...] Font Management for Ubuntu Linux Posted by suvi under Graphics, Ubuntu New tutorial added to HowtoMatrix database. Font Management for Ubuntu Linux As someone whose business also provides web development and graphic design, among other services, it was a real treat to bump into this font management gem (a few hours ago) “Fonty Python”. As the name implies, it’s a python based application used to manage fonts – Great if you have a lot of fonts that you’d [...] Link to the original site [...]

  5. LSN LSN on April 9, 2010 12:26 pm

    I use Fontmatrix for font management. It is simple. I can view the font and install it. Just what i need.
    By the way, I gathered some of my favourite fonts to share specially with you. You can get them from my Dropbox http://dl.dropbox.com/u/566585.....nts.tar.gz

  6. UbuntuLinuxHelp UbuntuLinuxHelp on April 10, 2010 1:48 pm

    Thanks! :)

    http://www.fontmatrix.net/linu.....x

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