How to install Arial font (and other Windows fonts) in ubuntu?

Currently, there is a problem with sourceforge. The installer can't download the fonts properly.

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Simply run

sudo apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer
sudo fc-cache

in a terminal.

After that, check with

fc-match Arial

I have been getting LiberationSans-Regular.ttf: "Liberation Sans" "Regular" for sudo fc-match Arial

So I tried following to make it work :

1) Create directory to download fonts to: sudo mkdir ~/ms-fonts/

2) cd ~/ms-fonts/

3) Download fonts manually :

wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/andale32.exe
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/arial32.exe
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/arialb32.exe
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/comic32.exe
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/courie32.exe
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/georgi32.exe
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/impact32.exe
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/times32.exe
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/trebuc32.exe
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/verdan32.exe
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/webdin32.exe

4) sudo dpkg-reconfigure ttf-mscorefonts-installer and follow instructions. When asked, use full path to directory where fonts were downloaded i.e. /home/root2/ms-fonts/

5) sudo fc-cache

6) Check if installation is done successfully or not : sudo fc-match Arial

Hope this helps.

Since the ttf-mscorefonts-installer mechanism mentioned in the accepted answer is still broken in Ubuntu 18.04 and I could not find a suitable mirror server for it to fix it, I propose to use this manual mechanism instead to install the very same fonts:

1. Install cabextract, a tool needed to unpack self-extracting .exe archives:

   sudo apt install cabextract
   

2. Download the font package provided via this page (also note the EULA there):

   wget https://www.freedesktop.org/software/fontconfig/webfonts/webfonts.tar.gz
   

3. Unpack, twice:

   tar -xzf webfonts.tar.gz
   cd msfonts/
   cabextract *.exe
   

4. Move the fonts to your user's directory for installing additional fonts:

   cp *.ttf *.TTF ~/.local/share/fonts/
   

5. Restart the software in which you want to use the fonts, and they should be ready to use.