With these simple steps, you can install the latest LibreOffice and Microsoft fonts (Arial, Times New Roman) on your Ubuntu/Debian computer.

Table of Contents

Downloading and installing LibreOffice

  1. Go to LibreOffice website and download “Linux (64bit) (deb)” option.
  2. Open a terminal inside folder where LibreOffice downloaded and unpack it. 
    tar -xzf <LIBREOFFICE TAR.GZ FILE>
  3. Change directory to “DEBS” folder inside the new LibreOffice unpacked folder. 
    cd <LIBREOFFICE FOLDER>/DEBS/
  4. Install packages with dpkg. 
    sudo dpkg -i *.deb

Installing Microsoft TrueType fonts

  • Install ttf-mscorefonts-installer. 
    sudo apt install ttf-mscorefonts-installer -y
  • You can also download the package from a Debian mirror (like this) and use dpkg to install it. In this case, you may have to execute sudo apt-get -f install if there is a dependency problem and sudo fc-cache -f -v to reload font cache after install.

Open source alternatives

You can download open source versions of the Microsoft-proprietary fonts: fonts-liberation2 for example.

If you have any suggestion, feel free to contact me via social media or email.