Install Chinese Fonts

Install Chinese/CJK fonts on Linux hosts using distro packages and fontconfig verification. Use when Chinese text renders as tofu / missing glyphs, or when an agent needs Noto or Source Han fonts for servers, containers, desktops, screenshots, PDFs, browser automation, or headless Chrome/Playwright environments.

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.