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I am very sure Arial is installed on my computer, because when I type fc-match Arial I see LiberationSans-Regular.ttf: "Liberation Sans" "Regular" as the output in the terminal.

However all the fonts in my LibreOffice Calc look horrible. As I hover over "Arial" in the fonts, I see "Font Name". The current font is not available and will be substituted`.

Why is this happening? How to stop this?

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  • How did you install Arial?
    – muru
    Mar 10, 2016 at 5:25
  • I looked for Arial on Software-Center. I found one package called tts-mscorefonts-installer. I clicked on install. It did flash me that some EULA wasn't signed or something. But the installations completed. Mar 10, 2016 at 5:39
  • If the EULA wasn't signed, then it's unlikely the fonts were installed - those are downloaded separately by the package.
    – muru
    Mar 10, 2016 at 5:54
  • 3
    Possible duplicate of Did I accept the ttf-mscorefonts-installer EULA?
    – muru
    Mar 10, 2016 at 5:54
  • 1
    What is the output of fc-list 'Arial'?
    – Anwar
    Dec 13, 2016 at 8:24

2 Answers 2

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If fc-match suggests you a font which is not the one you requested, it means the font is not installed.

To install it, type this in a terminal:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall ttf-mscorefonts-installer

That will reinstall the ttf-mscorefonts-installer. Make sure you accept the license otherwise it will again not install the font.

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  • 1
    No, the question says that Arial is definitely installed because the computer says it isn't using the font. That's not valid reasoning. I definitely didn't have the Arial font, and fc-match Arial gave me the exact same response as in the question. The comments to the question say that the EULA wasn't accepted, which prevents the font from being installed. After installing the package and accepting the EULA, fc-match Arial says Arial.ttf: "Arial" "Regular", so this is an answer that works. Dec 13, 2016 at 16:09
  • @ChaiT.Rex not necessarily this command runs actually on 16.04 into emptiness with a half installed package which is missing fonts.
    – Videonauth
    Dec 13, 2016 at 16:30
  • It cannot be inferred that OP missing the font just from fc-match's output. Because fc-match doesn't list the font, instead it shows the best matching font, which you can control. Even if you have Arial font, it can show "Liberation Sans". @ChaiT.Rex
    – Anwar
    Dec 13, 2016 at 17:25
  • It can be inferred from "It did flash me that some EULA wasn't signed or something." The package won't install the fonts without the EULA being signed. Dec 13, 2016 at 17:30
  • I apologize for the first comment. I actually wanted to put emphasis on the fact that You can't rely on fc-match's output and I have the same situation today. I have arial and fc-match shows Liberation Sans
    – Anwar
    Dec 13, 2016 at 17:54
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As stated in comments on the other answer here, you have in fact no Arial font installed other wise fc-match Arial would state the following:

$ fc-match Arial
Arial.ttf: "Arial" "Regular"

Edit: as @Anwar stated in comment fc-match can yield a false result, so to be sure do as well an fc-list Arial which should yield an output like the following:

$ fc-list Arial
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/msttcorefonts/Arial_Italic.ttf: Arial:style=Italic,Cursiva,kurzíva,kursiv,Πλάγια,Kursivoitu,Italique,Dőlt,Corsivo,Cursief,Kursywa,Itálico,Курсив,İtalik,Poševno,nghiêng,Etzana
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/msttcorefonts/Arial.ttf: Arial:style=Regular,Normal,obyčejné,Standard,Κανονικά,Normaali,Normál,Normale,Standaard,Normalny,Обычный,Normálne,Navadno,thường,Arrunta
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/msttcorefonts/arialbd.ttf: Arial:style=Bold,Negreta,tučné,fed,Fett,Έντονα,Negrita,Lihavoitu,Gras,Félkövér,Grassetto,Vet,Halvfet,Pogrubiony,Negrito,Полужирный,Fet,Kalın,Krepko,đậm,Lodia
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/msttcorefonts/Arial_Bold_Italic.ttf: Arial:style=Bold Italic,Negreta cursiva,tučné kurzíva,fed kursiv,Fett Kursiv,Έντονα Πλάγια,Negrita Cursiva,Lihavoitu Kursivoi,Gras Italique,Félkövér dőlt,Grassetto Corsivo,Vet Cursief,Halvfet Kursiv,Pogrubiona kursywa,Negrito Itálico,Полужирный Курсив,Tučná kurzíva,Fet Kursiv,Kalın İtalik,Krepko poševno,nghiêng đậm,Lodi etzana
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/msttcorefonts/arialbi.ttf: Arial:style=Bold Italic,Negreta cursiva,tučné kurzíva,fed kursiv,Fett Kursiv,Έντονα Πλάγια,Negrita Cursiva,Lihavoitu Kursivoi,Gras Italique,Félkövér dőlt,Grassetto Corsivo,Vet Cursief,Halvfet Kursiv,Pogrubiona kursywa,Negrito Itálico,Полужирный Курсив,Tučná kurzíva,Fet Kursiv,Kalın İtalik,Krepko poševno,nghiêng đậm,Lodi etzana
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/msttcorefonts/Arial_Bold.ttf: Arial:style=Bold,Negreta,tučné,fed,Fett,Έντονα,Negrita,Lihavoitu,Gras,Félkövér,Grassetto,Vet,Halvfet,Pogrubiony,Negrito,Полужирный,Fet,Kalın,Krepko,đậm,Lodia
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/msttcorefonts/ariali.ttf: Arial:style=Italic,Cursiva,kurzíva,kursiv,Πλάγια,Kursivoitu,Italique,Dőlt,Corsivo,Cursief,Kursywa,Itálico,Курсив,İtalik,Poševno,nghiêng,Etzana

So to make sure it is really properly installed (the usual command runs sadly in 404 errors during installation) do the following:

apt remove --purge ttf-mscorefonts-installer

This removes the current installation. Just doing this to make sure we accept the EULA in the next following installation dialog.

sudo apt install ttf-mscorefonts-installer

It most likely gives you while installing a few error messages while installation, stating that it can't fetch the font from sourceforge.net. To work around this simply do the following:

TMP=$(mktemp -d)
cd "$TMP"
awk '/Url/ {system("wget "$2)}' /usr/share/package-data-downloads/ttf-mscorefonts-installer
sudo /usr/lib/msttcorefonts/update-ms-fonts "$TMP"/*
sudo touch /var/lib/update-notifier/package-data-downloads/ttf-mscorefonts-installer

This is should result in a fairly long output processing all the Microsoft fonts and updating them. All now needed to do is cleaning up.

cd ..
rm -r "$TMP"

To test now do an fc-match Arial again which should now yield the above stated result.

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  • fc-match Arial will not always show the font even if the font is installed. It's not a 100% surety test. Instead fc-list Arial should be used
    – Anwar
    Dec 13, 2016 at 17:17

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