Install urdu fonts in Linux (Ubuntu & openSUSE)
Written by : Admin - Articles written so far : 99
- Posted on : 18 May, 2010
Ok, this was not that easy stuff if you don’t know how to do it and where to find it. I mean 1st fonts, then installation or copying to the right directories. Websites like bbcurdu.com and urdupoint.com are common Urdu news sites which i am sure most of the Urdu reading surfers will surf for the latest news and articles. These two websites use different fonts rendering system for browsers like Firefox and Chrome. I am not using any Urdu keyboard here and not using translation for the whole system, its just how to read Urdu websites in Linux, this tutorial is just for installing fonts system wide for browsers in Linux not a language pack etc. I will focus on two distros at the moment, Ubuntu and openSUSE. Ubuntu 9.04,9.10 and openSUSE 11.2(KDE4.4.3) will be used for the installation with Firefox 3.6.3, Firefox 3.0.19, Chrome 6.0.400.0. If you are on 10.04(Ubuntu), you can install it there also by the mentioned way below.
Update(15-01-2012): This solution also works for Ubuntu 10.04, 10.10,11.04 openSUSE 11.3, 11.4, 12.1.
Before going further to discuss the installation, we need to download these fonts:
1- NafeesWeb.ttf (For urdupoint.com etc)
Go to this web page, http://www.crulp.org/software/localization/Fonts/nafeesWebNaskh.html
Download the file with this title ‘Font with MS VOLT project source‘. Unzip it in the directory where it is downloaded. Until here we are done with this font.
2- asunaskh.ttf (For bbcurdu.com etc)
Download directly from this site, http://www.urdulife.com/font/asunaskh.ttf
So lets start from openSUSE, the easy one which will make your life easier.
1- Open ‘Personal Settings(Configure desktop)‘ and click on ‘Font Installer‘
2- Click on ‘Add‘ button and navigate to the fonts where you downloaded it.
3- It will ask for three options like: Personal, System, Cancel. Which means you want to install it just for this user or system wide for all. I went for System to install it system wide for other users too. It will ask for the root password upon installation.
4- Repeat step 2 and 3 for the 2nd font.
5- Restart your browser and there you go.
Easy i would say!
Now its turn for Ubuntu. Here also have two types of installation/copying, one is system wide and another is user specific.
Method-1 (User specific):
1- You are not much familiar with this terminal thing?, so lets do it the easy way then. Go to your home directory like my case /home/mian. You can use nautilus for this. Click on Places -> Computer and then navigate to your home directory.
2- Now click on ‘View‘ in the menu and check ‘Show hidden files‘. Alternatively you can use Ctrl+h, just press and hold Ctrl and press h.
3- Search for folder .fonts, is it there?, if yes then no worries. Ohh..is not there?.. don’t worry, lets create it, right click and create a directory with name without quotes ‘.fonts‘. (Note the point before fonts, don’t be confused. It’s dot with fonts, so that it becomes .fonts).
4- Now copy the fonts from the downloaded directory and paste it in .fonts directory.
5- Now a little bit terminal thing, but don’t worry its not rocket science. Just open terminal and type this.
sudo fc-cache -vf
If ask for the password, enter your password.
6- You are done, restart the browsers and check the websites.
Method-2 (System wide):
1- In this case, we will use terminal, but will be just two commands to get you these fonts working. Open terminal and type this:
gksudo nautilus
Enter your password to proceed.
2- Now go to this directory, /usr/share/fonts/truetype and create a folder named ‘urdu‘ without quotes, and paste fonts here from the downloaded directory. Close this window now.
3- Now in the terminal, run this command:
sudo fc-cache -vf
4- Done, restart Firefox or Chrome or other browser and navigate to your favorite Urdu site.
I haven’t tested this on new release of Ubuntu 10.04. I have to give it a try later.
Here are the two working examples in the form of snapshots for urdupoint and bbcurdu after font installation:
So now your fonts are installed and working. Enjoy reading and surfing these sites.
Good luck with it!
Related posts:
- Install Arial/Time New Romans etc fonts in openSUSE11.2
- Install Chromium in openSUSE and Ubuntu
- Install/Configure SSH in Linux
- Install/Upgrade Koffice in openSUSE 11.2
- Screen shots of Ubuntu 10.04
Hi,
I used to be in Mandriva camp and I never had any problems with Urdu websites, word or scrbd documents, etc.
Now I Have switched over to OpenSuse 11.2 due to their better implementation of KDE and better availability of packages and management through YAST.
Coming to my PROBLEM.
I have installed at least different 9 Urdu fonts from Jameel Noori Nastaleeq to Tughari and few others including two Arabic fonts and two mentioned by you above but still, some websites are not appearing correctly:
For example, this Scribd document:
Link is deleted by Scribd
It is appearing as (see screen shot, just in case it is appearing correctly at your end)
Broken Link
Do I need to install some other pack for Urdu support? Any help will be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
Hi,
There are many Urdu fonts around, different sites uses different fonts. To be more specific to your problem, i have found this link which mention some fonts for the site you mentioned. Download the fonts, i am not sure from where you can get it. Google is your friend, and install it the way written in the above post. Hope it will help.
Thanks for responding – but are you sure it’s not an issue with OpenSuse? Because I just ended up migrating my Thunderbird from Mandriva 2010 to Suse 11.2, the emails that I had in Urdu Jameel Noorie was being shown in the same manner as I gave screen shot in my post above.
In addition to this, could it be a problem of encoding?
Thanks for your time again.
Update:
I spent my whole day searching and install various Urdu fonts – now I have at least 20 different Urdu and about 6 Arabic fonts installed. The display is still the same as in the screen shot link given in my post above.
Based on my experience with Suse 11.2 is that, it has no match for Urdu support that it is there in Mandriva 2010. Although SuSe is good in some things but Mandriva is more better in some areas.
Cheers!
Actually browser specific fonts are not distro related issue. Fonts are rendered separately for browser than OS itself. I am pretty sure this is not openSUSE related problem. If that fonts are working in Mandriva, you can copy and use it in openSUSE, give it a shot.
Regards
Great job! Worked perfectly!
Thanks.
I installed the fonts in /usr/share/truetype as advised
But the display is same with many empty boxes for urdu bbc
I use ubuntu 10.04 lts i386
Salam Sajid,
I am pretty sure, it will work with no issue. But i feel that you are missing some thing in the steps. Try to repeat the steps carefully and restart the browser.
P.s: Also make sure that the fonts are copied correctly and are the correct fonts needed by the site.
If this did not solve it, you can take screen shots of the site, fonts copied to specified directory, terminal output etc and post the links for the screen shots here, so that i can help you.
Good luck!
Yes it worked after I rebooted
Thanks