I found the original post on how to do this over here at MS TrueType Fonts on CentOS 5 but just in case you’re intimidated by the rpm building commands I’ve decided to post the final RPM which is an easy install on CentOS 5 and you’re ready to go. Here’s the original excerpt from that post:
Microsoft TrueType fonts are used by most websites so it’s often useful to install them under Linux. No doubt due to licensing restrictions, there is no RPM to install them directly under CentOS, but it’s not that complicated [following] these instructions…
Instead of manually building an RPM, however, I’ve provided the RPM for download here.
- Download msttcorefonts-2.0-1.noarch.rpm
- Install RPM: rpm -ivh msttcorefonts-2.0-1.noarch.rpm
- Link up TrueType fonts for some apps: ln -s /usr/share/fonts/msttcorefonts/ /usr/share/fonts/default/TrueType
Done! Now, close and reopen any applications you may have open. If they can use the new font, like Firefox, and they’re not hard-wiring any specific fonts yet then they should start using the new fonts. For example, lots of websites using MS core fonts and Firefox will start using them if they’re available. There are so many graphics glitches than come down to pixel-width issues of the other fonts because you’re not using the MS core fonts.
Good luck and enjoy!