If you are in search of finding and using some pretty fonts for your Debian desktop, applications, and web pages, Font Finder is there for your help. This Rust based application is easy to install and can fetch Google web fonts for you from the Google fonts archive. The Typecatcher font manager that we once used to fetch fonts from was written in Python. Font Finder, however, can be used to filter fonts based on their categories and has no Python runtime dependency. Font Finder is a free and open-sources application that performs much better than the good old Typecatcher.
In this article, we will explain how you can install Font Finder through Flatpak and use it to install and use your favorite Google fonts on your Debian.
We have run the commands and procedures mentioned in this article on a Debian 10 Buster system:
Install Font Editor through Flatpak
A stable version of the Font Editor can be installed through Flatpak using the Debian command line. Flatpak is a universal package system for software deployments, application virtualization, and most importantly package management that works on all Linux distros.
Step 1: Install Flatpak
Open your Terminal application through the system Application Launcher Search. You can access the launcher through the Super/Windows key.
The next step is to update your system’s repository index through the following command:
$ sudo apt-get update
This helps you in installing the latest available version of a software from the Internet. Please note that only an authorized user can add, remove and configure software on Debian.
Now you are ready to install Flatpak; you can do so by running the following command as sudo:
$ sudo apt-get install flatpak
The system might ask you the password for sudo and also provide you with a Y/n option to continue the installation. Enter Y and then hit enter; the software will be installed on your system. The process may, however, take some time depending on your Internet speed.
You can check the version number of the application, and also verify that it is indeed installed on your system, through the following command:
$ flatpak --version
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Step 2: Setup Flathub
In order for Flatpak to know where to find and download an application package from, you need to add the Flathub repository. This repository gives you a number of Flatpak applications to choose from. Add the Flathub repo as follows:
$ sudo flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
A dialog might appear, asking you to provide authentication details for sudo; please provide the password and the Flathub repository will be added to your system.
Step 3: Search for Font Finder Application ID
You can now search for any application through the following command syntax:
$ flatpak search [application-name]
I used the following command to search for Font Finder:
$ sudo flatpak search fontfinder
The search result gives you an Application ID which you can use to add a specific package.
$ flatpak install flathub [Application_ID]
Step 4: Install the Font Editor
I would install the Font Editor package from the Flathub repo, using the Flatpak installer, as follows:
$ sudo flatpak install flathub io.github.mmstick.FontFinder
When you run this command, Flatpak might also ask you to install the required runtime for io.github.mmstick.FontFinder/x86_64/stable. Enter Y so that this dependency and then the Font Editor can be installed on your system.
In case of error:
If the automatic installation of this dependency gives you an error, you can manually install it before installing Font Editor, through the following command:
$ sudo flatpak install flathub org.gnome.Platform/x86_64/3.28
And then install Font Finder through the same command that is mentioned above:
$ sudo flatpak install flathub io.github.mmstick.FontFinder
Enter Y to start the installation procedure. The Font Finder package might take longer to install depending on your Internet speed after which it will be installed on your system.
Launch and use Font Finder
In order to launch the Font Editor application through the command line, you can make use of the following command:
$ flatpak run io.github.mmstick.FontFinder
This is how the application looks like:
In the left pane, you can see all the available Google Fonts. You can search for a Font from here, select it and its preview will be shown in the right pane.
I was looking for a particular font named Itim. I searched for it from the left pane, saw the preview, and clicked the Install button so that I can use it in all of my system applications.
Now, when I opened my LibreOffice Writer I could easily see the font in the Fonts drop-down-all ready to use.
This is how easily and quickly you can install and use Google fonts on Debian, using the extremely reliable Font Finder application.
