Font 'Arial' is not available to the JVM

Question

I'm working on a Java project that uses Jasperreports. I worked several times in other projects using the same technology, and i had the same problem when trying to print a report in Unix environments.

My project uses:

• JBoss 4.2.3.GA
• Java 1.6
• Jasperreports 4.7.0

The exception thrown is:

net.sf.jasperreports.engine.util.JRFontNotFoundException: Font 'Arial' is not available to the JVM. See the Javadoc for more details.

I found a common solution to solve this issue and ir really works:

sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts

However, I want to understand how Jasper works with fonts, and how it searches this fonts installed in Unix environments. Maybe a better question is: how JVM handles native fonts? Can anyone give me a detailed explanation on this subject? How are system fonts made available for the JVM in runtime?

Answer 1

Java asks the OS to provide the fonts. How that works depends on the OS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arial states its is installed on MS-Windows and MAC OSX

Answer 2

If you don't want to go through the hassle of downloading jars and what not, just go to software-center and click install Ubuntu restricted extras. This package will install not only MS Fonts but other supports for applications with restricted copyright.

This works for Ubuntu Systems.