MS Fonts offline

[Chris Mohler]

On Sat, Jun 13, 2009 at 8:29 AM, Arun Shrimali<arun.reso at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 13, 2009 at 12:16 PM, Chris Mohler<cr33dog at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, Jun 13, 2009 at 12:19 AM, Arun Shrimali<arun.reso at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear All,
>>>
>>> Thanks for the all support, but If I am not wrong, there is no handy
>>> tool which can load ms fonts on ofline ubuntu machine. Can any expert
>>> person work on it to help lots of ubuntu users ...................
>>
>> You are free to create your own solution. Hint: it is possible to
>> modify the postinstall script in the Ubuntu .deb file to use a local
>> tarball instead of the SF URL.
>>
>> While there is no handy tool available, I doubt that such a tool would
>> help 'lots' of Ubuntu users, as most of them will likely have internet
>> access.
>>
>> Chris
>>
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>
> Dear Chris,
>
> Such tool would be helpful atleast to the users in developing
> countries where still Internet to all is not true.
> I am not a Linux Expert, any expert could help us
> .........................may be you as you have understood the problem

And how would such a tool be distributed then?  By mail?

The easiest way to (legally) install these fonts is to download the
.exe files and the cabextract .deb package and carry them to the
offline machine(s).  Install cabextract, extract the .exe files, copy
the TTFs into ~/.fonts.  I see no reason to create a specialized tool.

IMO a better approach: use free alternatives.

  Andale Mono -> http://www.dafont.com/bitstream-vera-mono.font
  Arial Black -> http://www.dafont.com/old-sans-black.font
  Arial (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic) -> http://www.dafont.com/reznor-broken.font
  Comic Sans MS (Bold) -> http://www.dafont.com/i-hate-comic-sans.font
  Courier New (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic) ->
http://www.dafont.com/pseudo-apl.font
  Georgia (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic) ->
http://www.dafont.com/apple-garamond.font
  Impact -> http://www.dafont.com/headthinker.font
  Times New Roman (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic) ->
http://www.dafont.com/gentium.font
  Trebuchet (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic) -> http://www.dafont.com/qlassik.font
  Verdana (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic) -> http://www.dafont.com/sansation.font
  Webdings -> http://www.dafont.com/theme.php?cat=721

None of these is a perfect match, but you get the idea - hunt down a
solid collection of fonts, put them on USB stick or CD, and there is
your 'install tool'.  Just copy them to ~/.fonts - no need for the
cabextract nonsense.

Of course you could just google for those MS fonts and download the
TTFs and do the same thing - but that is clearly a license violation.

Good luck,
Chris