Hello,

Using http://www.vcn.bc.ca/~dugan/setting-up-slackware.html as a guide ("Installing Your New Fonts"), I'm trying to install a certain new font. I've been without success so far, so here are my questions:

1. Is it necessary that the additional ttf fonts (from windows and other places) be placed exclusively in a folder of their own, or is it okay that I have them alongside various other types of fonts as they exist in /usr/local/share/fonts/?

2. I'm trying to install, specifically, this font: http://www.crulp.org/software/locali...Nastaleeq.html (ttf file exists in the zip download).
Ultimately, I want this page: http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/ to appear correctly (preferably, in the linked font :-). Right now, the fonts do render.. but poorly. Here's a screenshot - http://www.geocities.com/asdfsdf_sdfasdf/snapshot1.png. As you can see, asides from being not very pretty, the stroking, for some reason, is bold on most characters - and not for a few. Also, some letters are not "connected" as they should be in the script.

From what I've read, I think to install the font, I'm supposed to:
place it in /usr/local/share/fonts/ (with xorg.conf file recognizing this path for ttf fonts.. again, I can change it, if it is that they (ttf fonts) should be placed in a folder of their own),
and pass the following commands:
Now, assuming that it is properly installed and dandy (and I rather suspect that it isn't at this point), will it be automatically recognized.. and in place of the mediocre font as it appears on the
http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/ page for me right now, start appearing? This doesn't really click in my head.. (here's my current line of thought: if a preview a text file in firefox and it appears in a generic font, installing a font and previewing it again, firefox probably wouldn't give the same text rendered in the newly-installed font). How can I have the Nafees Nastaleeq font recognized by my system, is my question.

3. In xterm, in this snapshot: http://www.geocities.com/asdfsdf_sdfasdf/snapshot1.png, I think anti-aliasing isn't doing its job very well (the capital "M" character is a notable example). Is it indeed anti-aliasing that is responsible for the poor rendering (the colored fuzziness around the capital "M" character, for example)? I was thinking so myself.

I'll appreciate any words on this, and if someone thinks I should rtfm, then please do link to one (at the moment, I'm so clueless about dealing with fonts that I can't even decide what would be a good resource for me to learn about them ;-). Thanks very much in advance,
-wheeliee

As root, copy all .ttf fonts in /usr/share/fonts/TTF directory
then:
[edit]
for antialiasing, did you read this thread:
Beautiful Fonts in 12.1

Have a look at your xorg.conf's FontPath entries. I find it easiest to put fonts in one of those, and then they'll be found automatically by X and its applications (after you restart it, of course). If you add them elsewhere, you'd need to add a FontPath line for the custom location. Whether you'd need to create a custom /etc/fonts/local.conf (same format as /etc/fonts/fonts.conf), I can't say for sure, but it can't hurt.

For any additions going somewhere besides /usr/local (which I almost *never* use unless it's temporary), I strongly prefer to make a package. As an example:

Here's the doinst.sh from that package:

Install this font instead:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/fontinstall/popupwin.shtml

It's what's specified in that site's CSS.

If things still look wrong, try one or both of the following:

• ensuring that Firefox is set to not override font choices made by the site designers
• disabling the Freetype bytecode interpreter and using its autohinter instead

Hi dugan, thank you very much for replying, and I'm very sorry that I'm replying after such a long while (school work had been keeping me busy ;\)

In #slackware, I asked about this.. and lots of people put forward screenshots of how http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/ appeared for them.. and it appeared as it did for me: incorrectly -- inconsistent stroking, bad connecting of characters, etc. EXCEPT for one person, some guy named BP{k} -- here is his screenshot: http://www.geocities.com/asdfsdf_sdfasdf/urdu.png -- the BBC page appeared correctly for him too, without installing the fonts as explicitly pointed out on the BBC page (and that's been confusing me a little -- however, I'm betting that http://bbc.co.uk/urdu appears correctly for you as well, dugan).

Anyway, later today I'll take a stab at it, (after bothering BK{k} about this as well, hopefully he won't mind).

Hi,

I know you have referenced Dugan's guide. I would suggest that you look at 'Beautiful Fonts in 12.1'. Daedra & Dugan have provide an excellent LQ post/guide.

This link and others are available from 'Slackware-Links'. More than just Slackware® links!