Installing Mac Fonts in Ubuntu

Once I found Linux compatible replacements for my favorite programs, swapping from Mac OSX to Linux was a simple transition. Then, I received a phone call from a client asking about the weird font settings in an rtf document. Up until this point, everything I sent was plain text, so font settings didn’t matter. I’m not working any website designs or print designs at the moment, so I haven’t needed any fonts that are not part of a standard Ubuntu install.

By this point, I have recovered all my old documents, pictures, ITunes purchases, etc. Any content I paid for or created, I recovered and moved to my new system. I forgot that I paid for the fonts. Some were packaged with software, the operating system, and others I purchased individually.

I pulled out the tiny hard drive which I had already removed from my Power Book, grabbed the IDE/SATA to USB cable I bought from TigerDirect for $15, and plugged the hard drive into my computer. A few hours later, my specialty fonts, including the non TrueType/OpenType fonts, are installed on my new system.

Here’s how I did it:

Requirements:

• hfsplus (source: Synaptic)
• hfsutils (source: Synaptic)
• Wine (source: Synaptic)
• CrossFont Trial (Windows software which runs under Wine) (http://www.asy.com/sharecf.htm)
• Fonty Python (source: Synaptic)

Materials:

• Original drive from the old PowerBook
• USB connector for original drive

Instructions:

1. Touch something metal (not the hard drive) and discharge static. Connect the Mac hard drive to the Ubuntu desktop. (If it doesn’t automatically mount, mount it.)
2. Click the Applications Menu (far right) and scroll down to Wine. Click Configure Wine.
3. Click the Drives tab. Under the Drives tab, click the add a new drive button. Assign it a letter. Then, click on the letter for the new drive. Map it to your USB Power Book drive (normally, /media/drive). Close Configure Wine.
4. Go to your home directory. (Normally, /home/user_name). In this directory, click View > Show Hidden Files. Right click on the .wine directory. Go to the permissions tab. Change the group to root and give root read/write privileges. Save and close.
5. Start up Nautilus as root. (Personal preference is opening terminal and typing "sudo nautilus").
6. In Nautilus, navigate to /home/your_username. Click View > Show Hidden Files. Open .wine > drive_c > Program Files > CrossFnt > CrossFnt.exe.
7. Click File > Open Folder and navigate to the entire drive. Go walk the dog while CrossFont finds all fonts installed on the drive.
8. Select which fonts you want and convert them to .otf or .ttf. Save these in a location on your main hard drive.
9. Open Fonty Python to view, organize, and install your fonts. Alternatively, you can install all the fonts following these instructions.

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