If you want to view the fonts installed on your Ubuntu system, you can do so by opening a program like OpenOffice Writer and looking at the list of fonts. However, there is another way.
The Specimen Font Previewer is available in the Ubuntu Software Center for easy installation. Select Ubuntu Software Center from the Applications menu.
The Ubuntu Software Center dialog box displays. Enter “gnome-specimen” in the search box in the upper, right corner of the dialog box. As you type, any software that matches what you have typed so far displays in the list below the search box. Select the Specimen Font Previewer and click the arrow button on the right.
Scroll down on the screen that displays and click the Install button.
When asked for your password, enter it and click Authenticate.
The progress of the installation displays.
Once the installation is finished, select Close from the File menu to close the Ubuntu Software Center.
To open the Specimen Font Previewer select Graphics | Specimen Font Previewer from the Applications menu.
The Specimen Font Previewer opens with the list of the fonts on the left side and the preview list on the left. To add a font to the preview list, select a font from the list on the left and click the Add button. You can also double-click on the name of the font to add it to the list.
The standard test sentence that uses every letter of the alphabet is used by default as the sample text for previewing fonts. If you want to preview the fonts using different sample text, enter that text in the Preview Text edit box and specify a point size in the edit box to the right of the Preview Text edit box.
Once you have added some fonts to preview, you can delete a font from the preview list by selecting the font name and clicking the Remove button.
If you want to delete all the fonts in the preview list, select Clear List from the Edit menu.
You can customize the background and foreground colors in Specimen Font Previewer. To do this, select Change Colors from the Edit menu. The Change colors dialog box displays. To change a color, click on the button next to Foreground color or Background color.
The Pick a Color dialog box displays. Change the Red, Green, and Blue values to select a color or click on a color in the icon on the left. You can adjust the color using the Hue, Saturation, and Value edit boxes. You can also enter an HTML-style, hexadecimal color value, or a color name such as orange, in the Color name edit box. When you have set the desired color, click the OK button and then click the Close button on the Change colors dialog box.
It may be time consuming to find a font in the list if you have a lot of fonts installed. You can search for a font using the Find feature. Select Find from the Edit menu.
The Find edit box displays at the bottom of the list of fonts. Start typing the name or part of the name you want to find. The results start to display in the font list as you type. Once you have found matching fonts and added the desired fonts to the preview list, if desired, use the X button to the right of the Find edit box to close it.
The Specimen Font Previewer provides a better way of previewing fonts than using a program like OpenOffice Writer. For example, if you want to compare some of the available serif fonts, you can search for “serif” in the Find edit box, add the found fonts to the preview list, and then compare the fonts in the preview list on the right.
by Lori Kaufman