In this article I am going to introduce you to Fonty Python. Fonty Python isn’t just a cool name, it’s a tool that allows you to manage your fonts in a rather different manner. Fonty Python allows you to organize your collection of fonts in sub-collections called Pogs (for TyPOGraphy). In this article you will learn how to install and manage your fonts with FontyP ython. Bring out your fonts!

Installation

If you are using Ubuntu you will happy to know you can find Fonty Python in either Synaptic or the Ubuntu Software Center. Do a search for “fonty” (no quotes) and install the results. If you aren’t running Ubuntu, you can install from source by following these steps:

1. Make sure you have the requirements installed: python2.4 (up to python2.6, but not python3), python-dev, python-imaging, python-wxgtk2.6 (or greater).
2. Download the tar file from the download page.
3. Open up a terminal window.
4. Unpack the tar file with the command tar xvzf fontypython-XXX.tar.gz Where XXX is the release number.
5. Change into the newly created directory with the command cd fontypython-XXX Where XXX is the release number.
6. Issue the command python setup.py install.

The result will be the fontypython command installed successfully.

Using Fonty Python

Figure 1

You will find the Fonty Python executable in the Graphics sub-menu of your Applications menu. When you first fire up Fonty Python you will see the main window (see Figure 1), which will contain no fonts. If you are like me, you keep your fonts in the ~/.fonts directory. The problem is, Fonty Python will not look in hidden directories. To get around this you need to create a symbolic link in your home directory so that Fonty Python can see your fonts. Open up that terminal window again and issue the following command:

ln -s ~/.fonts ~/fonts

Now when you open up Fonty Python it will be able to see your fonts. What you want to do is double click the fonts directory in the left-most pane. This will reveal your fonts in the middle pane. At first you might think you’re not seeing your entire collection. If you notice there is a drop-down with a number and a Forward button. If you click the drop-down you will see that Fonty Python places fonts on pages, so you’re not having to scroll through thousands of fonts in one pane. You can also click the Forward button to move through your font collection, one page at a time.

Creating Pogs

Notice in Figure 1 I have three Pogs created: Handwriting, Messy Fonts, and Typwriter. As you can imagine I am in the process of organizing my fonts. For my organizational needs I am creating a Pog for each font look. That way all I have to do is select a Pog by look and search the fonts associated with that Pog.

To create a Pog click the New Pog button and give your Pog a name. Once named that Pog will be listed in the Target Pogs pane. To add fonts to that Pog follow these steps:

1. Select the Pog you want to add fonts to.
2. Go through your installed fonts one page at a time and select fonts to be included.
3. Before you move to a new page click the “Put fonts into XXX” button (Where XXX is the name of the Pog).

Continue until you have added all related fonts into your Pog. Don’t worry if you forget a font, because you can always add more fonts to your Pogs any time.

Final thoughts

Now that you have all of your fonts organized, it will be much easier to find, organize, and view the fonts you have installed on your machine.

Naturally one of the issues with fonts is where to get them. If you do a search for “free fonts” you will come up with plenty of sites that offer fonts. There are even sites that sell fonts for a reasonable price. Of course if you are serious about desktop publishing or graphics you will want to look at higher quality fonts. On with the installation.

Per User Installation

By far the easiest installation is the per user installation. What this type of install does is install the fonts in such a way that only the targeted use has access to the fonts. For this type of installation download all of your fonts into a directory the user has access to (the ~/Downloads directory works fine.) Once you have your fonts collected (You will most likely have to unzip each file which will result in either .ttf or .TTF files) do the following (all in a terminal window) within the directory containing your downloaded fonts.

mkdir ~/.fonts

mv *ttf *TTF ~/.fonts

Now log out of your desktop environment and log back in. Those fonts should now be available to you. If you’re unsure you can fire up either OpenOffice or The GIMP to see if your fonts are available. They should be.

Global Installation

Installing fonts globally allows all users access to the fonts. This is not as simple as installing per-user but it is still simple. You sill have to download all of your fonts. Once you have them downloaded unzip the files (making sure all the *ttf and *TTF files are in the same directory) and su to the root user. Once you are the root user issue the following commands:

• mkdir   -p /usr/local/share/fonts/ttfonts
• mv *ttf *TTF /usr/local/share/fonts/ttfonts
• cd   /usr/local/share/fonts/ttfonts
• ttmkfdir   -o fonts.scale
• mkfontdir
• chkfontpath   –add /usr/local/share/fonts/ttfonts
• /etc/rc.d/init.d/xfs   restart

Now log out of your desktop and you can log in as any user and the fonts will be available to them.

Final Thoughts

See, installing fonts in Linux isn’t difficult – especially when installing on a per user basis. For most people the first method will suffice. Unless you work on a machine that is used by more than one user, you will only need the per user method. Of course if the global installation method is a bit daunting you can always copy the fonts into the ~/.fonts directory of every user that needs access to the various true type fonts.

New fonts can be nice for local websites or documents as well but I honestly was never a huge fan of that. Still, if you are looking for new fonts you should definitely take the time to visit the Font Cubes website which hosts an extensive font collection. Font cubes is a non-commercial website which does not mix free and commercial fonts like so many other font websites do.

A special feature is that the font is shown in its complete form and not only partially which is great if you are looking for a font that does have a specific char. Fonts are rated and the website offers several ways of listing fonts for the users. It is for instance possible to take a look at the most popular fonts, the highest rated fonts or the most downloaded fonts of the day.

Instructions on how to download and install the fonts are available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.