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Microsoft Office is undoubtedly a versatile program, but it is expensive, and not everyone can afford it. You need not worry, though, as you have several cheaper alternatives that you can use. For instance, Apache Open Office, Libre Office, and even the G-Suite are almost as good as Microsoft Office. However, you may be missing out on a few native features.

Among these alternatives, Libre Office is by far the best replacement for Microsoft Office. It supports almost all the features and file formats, except for a few native only to Microsoft.

However, the default font in many Libre Office programs, such as Writer, can be annoying sometimes, and you may need to change them. So, in this guide, you will learn how to add fonts to the libre office across different platforms.

Before we delve into that, you must know about the different fonts and font types that Libre Office supports.

Libre Office Fonts

Like most other platforms, Libre Office also supports three font types: Serif, Sans, and Mono. The different applications in the suite support up to more than 40 fonts that are part of either of the three font types. Note the fonts in the Libre Office suite are different from those present in other programs, such as Microsoft Office, or G-Suite, although most of them are cross-compatible.

The default font in Libre Writer is ‘Liberation Sans.’ To verify this, you can:

  1. Open the Libre Office Writer application.
  2. Click on ‘Tools and then on ‘Options.’
  3. It would help if you got a pane on the left side of your screen, where you can find several options.
  4. Select ‘Libre Office Writer’ from that list, and you should see another list of options.
  5. Now, from this list, choose ‘Basic Fonts,’ and you will see that the default font is ‘Liberation Sans’ with a font size of 12 pts.

Note that you can also change the default font and the font size for ‘Headers,’ ‘Lists,’ ‘Captions,’ and more.

Location of Libre Office Fonts

The location of Libre Office Fonts varies depending on the operating system.

For instance, in the Windows operating system, you can find them in the ‘Fonts’ directory, in the ‘Windows’ folder, in the ‘C:’ drive. Similarly, in Linux or Ubuntu, you will find them in the ‘Fonts’ directory, inside the ‘Share’ folder.

Likewise, in Mac OS, you can find them under ‘fonts’ in the ‘Resources’ directory, within ‘Contents.’

Font Embedding in Libre Office

While Microsoft Office allowed font embedding when they released Office 1997, Libre Office began to support the feature from version 4.1 onwards. The feature is available across all Libre Office applications, including Writer, Calc, and Impress.

Many font types, including the True Type and Open Type, permit embedding. Note that you cannot automatically embed fonts in Libre Office, and the only way to do it is by following these steps:

  1. Open any Libre Office application and click on ‘File.’
  2. Then, click on ‘Properties.’
  3. In the ‘Properties’ window, click on the ‘Font’ tab, and select the ‘Embed fonts in the document’ checkbox.
  4. Note that the location may vary depending on the operating system and the version of Libre Office that you are using.

How to Get Libre Office Fonts?

So, now, you know how to view and change default fonts in Libre Office. However, though Libre Office has a long list of fonts, you may need more fonts. It’s especially true if you are used to working on Microsoft Office or other such platforms.

If you want to add new fonts to Libre Office, you will first need to download them. Once you have downloaded them, you can follow these steps to install the new fonts in Libre Office. To do this:

  1. Open ‘Explorer’ on your Windows PC and locate the folder where you have downloaded the fonts.
  2. The font files will most likely be inside a zipped file.
  3. Right-click on the zipped file and extract the font files to a location of your choice.
  4. Then, go to that location where you extracted the font files, right-click on them, and select ‘Install.’
  5. You can also copy the font files or extract them directly to the ‘Fonts’ folder.
  6. Another way to install the fonts is to double-click on the font files.
  7. After the installation completes, restart Libre Office, and you should be able to see the newly added fonts.
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How to Add Fonts to Libre Office in Ubuntu?

You can also add fonts to Libre Office in Ubuntu as you do on other platforms, such as Windows.

  1. Download the fonts of your choice.
  2. Locate and extract the zipped file containing the fonts you downloaded by right-clicking on it and selecting ‘Extract.’
  3. Now, access that folder where you extracted the font files and looked for files with extensions, ‘.ttf’ and ‘.otf.’
  4. Double-click to open them in the font viewer, and select the ‘Install’ option in the top-right corner of your screen to install them.

Note that you won’t get an installation confirmation message here, as you do in Windows.

How to Add Google Fonts to Libre Office?

Google offers a host of fonts, most of which you can are free to download. You can also add Google Fonts to Libre Office by following these steps:

  1. Download a Google Font of your choice from the ‘Google Fonts’ website.
  2. Locate and extract the font files to a folder in the ‘Fonts’ directory on your computer.
  3. Restart Libre Office, and you should be able to see the fonts that you installed.

How to Add Microsoft Fonts to Libre Office?

Microsoft Fonts are of three types: True Type or Core Type, Clear Type, and Others, including Tahoma and Segoe UI. Let’s see how to install them in Libre Office.

1. Installing True Type Fonts

Among all the font types that you can find in Microsoft applications, such as Office, Microsoft released the True Type Fonts in 1996 from the core. Microsoft gave these fonts a permissive license that let other such software providers install them on their applications. Then, in 2002, the software corporation terminated the project.

However, you can still install True Type fonts on Open Office or Libre Office applications, as Microsoft didn’t end or break off the license agreement.

To install True Type Fonts in a Libre Office application, such as Writer:

  1. Open a ‘Terminal’ window using the shortcut.
  2. Execute the command: Sudo apt-get install TTF-ms core fonts-installer by copying and pasting it into the terminal and pressing ‘Enter.’
  3. Note that this command will ask for administrator access before launching the installer package.
  4. Grant the command administrator access by typing your password and pressing ‘Enter.’
  5. Once you grant administrator access, the command executes, and you will get a license agreement. You must accept this license agreement by selecting ‘OK’ and press ‘Enter.’
  6. The installer will then automatically download and configure the fonts.

2. Installing Clear Type Fonts

With Windows Vista and Office 2007, Microsoft added the Clear Type Fonts to its collection. The Clear Type Font consists of various fonts, including Calibri and Cambria, some of which we use today.

However, this time, the software giant chose not to release them to other vendors, although it let them download the fonts as a package that came with the PowerPoint Viewer 2007.

So, if you have this application, you can download and extract all the six Clear Type Fonts onto your Linux or Ubuntu system.

Note that the script is different from that mentioned above. While here, you only get the Clear Type fonts for the current user, the preceding script downloads and installs the True Type fonts for all the users.

The process gets much quicker by using some terminal commands. So, let’s begin.

  1. Run the following command to install the cab extract utility from the terminal: Sudo apt-get installs cabextract.
  2. The script needs a font directory to run, and you can create it with the help of the mkdir. Fonts command.
  3. Then, execute the Vista Fonts Installer script that goes like this: wget -qO- http://plasmasturm.org/code/vistafonts-installer/vistafonts-installer | bash
  4. Running this script will download all the Microsoft Clear Type Fonts and install them on your system.

3. Installing Other Font Types

It is enough to run the above two scripts to install the most common Microsoft Font types on Libre Office, including the True Type and Clear Type. However, besides these, you also have various other font types that you don’t get in the standard package. Two particular font types include ‘Tahoma’ and ‘Segoe UI.’

Installing these fonts is easy, especially when you have Windows and Ubuntu Linux running on the same computer. All you will need to do is:

  1. Access the Windows drive or partition from Ubuntu Linux.
  2. Navigate to the ‘Fonts’ folder within the ‘Windows’ folder in the ‘C:’ drive.
  3. Here, you should find all the fonts installed on Windows, including those for Microsoft Office. Double-Click on any font of your choice and select ‘Install’ to get them onto your Ubuntu partition.

If you have another computer that is on the Windows operating system, then you can also install Microsoft Fonts on Libre Office using this method.

  1. Navigate to the ‘Fonts’ folder by accessing the ‘C:’ drive and then opening the ‘Windows’ folder. Alternatively, you can also open the ‘Fonts’ pane from the Control Panel.
  2. Next, insert a USB flash drive into your Windows PC.
  3. When Windows recognizes the device, open the root folder.
  4. Then, select every font that you want to install and copy them onto the USB flash drive by dragging and dropping them there. Alternatively, you can also do this by right-clicking on a selected item and choosing ‘Copy.’ Then, open your USB flash drive, right-click anywhere inside it, and select ‘Paste.’
  5. After successfully copying all the items, you need to the USB flash drive, insert it into your Ubuntu system.
  6. Once the system detects the device, open the root folder where you copied all the font files.
  7. Next, double-click on all the font files you want to install and select ‘Install.’

Once the process completes, open Libre Office, and you should be able to see the new fonts you installed.

How to Add Fonts to Libre Office on Mac?

It is possible to install fonts on Mac manually. So, this means that you can also add fonts to Libre Office applications on your Mac. A simple way to do this would be to use the font book. However, before you can add fonts to Libre Office, you must first make them available. To do this:

  1. Copy the fonts you need and paste them in the ‘Fonts’ folder within ‘Library.’
  2. If you want the fonts to be available only for the current user, copy them onto the ‘Fonts’ folder inside the ‘Library’ folder within ‘Username’ and ‘Users.’

Here, it would help if you replaced ‘Username’ with your username.

So, now, you can start installing them by following these steps:

  1. On your Mac, click on ‘Computer.’ You can find this on the left pane of your desktop.
  2. Then, click on the ‘Add Fonts’ option.
  3. Locate and choose that folder that contains the fonts you want to install and then click on ‘Open.’

As soon as you click on ‘Open,’ the system will install the selected fonts.

A Final Note on Adding Fonts to Libre Office

Office applications of most systems running Ubuntu or Linux come with the Red Hat ‘Liberation Fonts’ by default. ‘Liberation Fonts’ is a substitute for many other font types found on various popular platforms, such as Microsoft Office. These fonts replace the most common font types, such as Arial, Arial Narrow, and Times New Roman, although they don’t resemble them in any way.

Moreover, the sizes of these Liberation Fonts also don’t match with those you get on Microsoft Office, which is more reason for installing Microsoft Office fonts on Libre Office.