Install Chinese Fonts

Install Chinese Fonts

Prefer system packages. They are smaller, easier to update, and more reliable than downloading huge upstream font archives.

Quick start

Use the bundled script for repeatable installs:

bash scripts/install_chinese_fonts.sh --dry-run
bash scripts/install_chinese_fonts.sh
bash scripts/install_chinese_fonts.sh --verify-only

The script:

• detects dnf / yum / apt-get
• installs a sane default CJK font set
• refreshes fontconfig with fc-cache -f
• verifies visible families with fc-list

Recommended workflow

1. Check whether Chinese fonts already exist.
2. Install distro-packaged CJK fonts.
3. Refresh font cache.
4. Verify that fontconfig can see CJK families.
5. Only if packages are unavailable or a specific family/version is required, fall back to upstream downloads such as Source Han Sans / 思源黑体.

Package-manager defaults

RHEL / Rocky / Alma / Anolis / CentOS 8+

Prefer Noto CJK packages:

sudo dnf -y install \
  google-noto-cjk-fonts \
  google-noto-sans-cjk-ttc-fonts \
  google-noto-serif-cjk-ttc-fonts
sudo fc-cache -f
fc-list | grep -Ei 'Noto Sans CJK|Noto Serif CJK|Source Han Sans|Source Han Serif' | head -40

Debian / Ubuntu

Prefer:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y fonts-noto-cjk
sudo fc-cache -f
fc-list | grep -Ei 'Noto Sans CJK|Noto Serif CJK|Source Han Sans|Source Han Serif' | head -40

Verification

Check whether Chinese fonts already exist:

fc-list :lang=zh family file | head -20

Check the specific families after installation:

fc-list | grep -Ei 'Noto Sans CJK|Noto Serif CJK|Source Han Sans|Source Han Serif' | head -40

Fallback: upstream manual install

Only use manual downloads when:

• the distro repo lacks the needed package
• a user explicitly asks for Source Han / 思源 family
• a specific upstream version is required

Recommended source:

• Adobe Source Han Sans releases on GitHub

Prefer language-specific archives over giant all-in-one bundles unless the user explicitly needs the full family.

After extraction, copy font files into a system font directory such as:

• /usr/share/fonts/
• /usr/local/share/fonts/

Then refresh cache:

fc-cache -f

Notes

• On headless Linux servers, installing fonts is often enough for Chrome, Playwright, PDF renderers, screenshots, and document export to display Chinese correctly.
• If an app still shows tofu boxes after installation, restart the app after fc-cache -f.
• For system-wide installs, expect root privileges or a privileged shell.