Where does Firefox look for fonts?
The font that I want Firefox to use for rendering web pages is in my system (/usr/share/fonts/truetype/), but Firefox doesn't include it in the list of fonts that I can choose from. Other applications (System Settings, LibreOffice) can use the font that I want.
Where does Firefox look for the fonts that it offers for me to choose from?
This issue was discussed in https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1354942, but the answer given was "The fonts are usually ordered in several section", which doesn't tell me where to put my font so that Firefox will see it.
I also think I remember seeing a comment somewhere that Firefox doesn't offer some of the fonts that it can see. How does it choose which fonts to offer? If I need to change my font so that Firefox will let me use it, I can do that with a font editor, but I need to know what the criteria are. Having glyphs for Basic Latin evidently isn't a requirement, see https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/avoid-problem-with-unsuitable-default-font/idi-p/37281.
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Firefox doesn't offer all the fonts on my (Linux) system. You may have to use an autoconfig file or userChrome.css. The files mentioned in the linked article are, on my system, named local-settings.js and mozilla.cfg. As an example, the latter contains this line: defaultPref("font.size.variable.x-western", 17);
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customizing-firefox-using-autoconfig
The three sections are: Serif, Sans-Serif, and Monospace. Under what category does your would appear ?
There are several layout.css.font-visibility prefs you can find on the about:config page that determine the visibility of the fonts.
1 - only base system fonts 2 - also fonts from optional language packs 3 - also user-installed fonts
Firefox offers me 'Adobe Helvetica', but some web sites have a problem with this if I don't check Allow pages to use their own fonts.
The font that I want to use is in /usr/share/fonts/truetype Firefox can't find it, although it can find other fonts in the same directory (but there may be other copies elsewhere). So I want to know where to put my preferred font so that Firefox can use it.
I can't find the Adobe Helvetica font file anywhere. I've tried find searches on adobe*, Adobe*, *helvetica*, and *Helvetica*: none of them shows a file that looks like an Adobe Helvetica font.
LibreOffice Writer doesn't offer me any Adobe fonts at all, but can find my preferred font and use it. Fontforge can't find Adobe Helvetica but can find other Adobe fonts and my preferred font. System Settings->Appearance->Font Management can find Adobe Helvetica but not my preferred font, but System Settings->Appearance->Fonts and KCharSelect can find both of them. There is something peculiar about Adobe Helvetica in KCharSelect: if I change the font size, the size of the displayed glyphs is the same for 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16, but 11 is smaller and 17 is bigger. For my preferred font the size of the displayed glyphs changes for each change of the size parameter.
There may be a problem here with different programs using different names for the same font, but there isn't a good solution to that since different programs are written by different people and there is no way of enforcing a standard over the whole of Open Source since it's all done by volunteers.
/usr/share/fonts/truetype is a directory.