Fonts packaging has been made really easy thanks to debhelper, cdbs and defoma.

Let us describe it by the example : ttf-nafees.

Here we are with one single font to install: ?NafeesWeb.ttf.

And we would like to see it installed as a TrueType font, at /usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-nafees.

Nothing is easier with dh_install. Just add this to your debian/install file:

*.ttf usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-nafees

debian/rules only contains a call to cdbs' debhelper makefile and to dh_installdefoma (please read its short manpage).

include /usr/share/cdbs/1/rules/debhelper.mk

install/ttf-nafees::
        dh_installdefoma

Don't forget to Build-Depend on a recent version of defoma (>= 0.7.0 should be enough) and to Depend on ${misc:Depends} (which will add defoma to your Depends field automatically thanks to dh_installdeb) in your debian/control:

Source: ttf-nafees
Section: x11
Priority: optional
Maintainer: Mohammed Adnène Trojette <adn+deb@diwi.org>
Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 4.2), cdbs (>= 0.4.23-1.1)
Build-Depends-Indep: defoma (>= 0.7.0)
Standards-Version: 3.7.2

Package: ttf-nafees
Architecture: all
Depends: ${misc:Depends}
Description: nafees free OpenType Urdu fonts
 This is a free OpenType Urdu font (Nafees Web Naskh), designed and
 developed by the Center for Research in Urdu Language Processing
 (CRULP, http://www.crulp.org/) at National University of Computer and
 Emerging Sciences (http://www.nu.edu.pk/).

Imagine you need to build a udeb for your font. Just add the following to debian/control:

Package: ttf-nafee-udeb
XC-Package-Type: udeb
Section: debian-installer
Architecture: all
Description: udeb package for nafees free OpenType Urdu fonts

Please note that creating udebs must be coordinated with the Debian Installer team; some font files contain more glyphs than needed, so stripping not necessary glyphs has to be performed for saving space (some infrastructure for achieving this has be already introduced in [http://packages.debian.org/unstable/debian-installer/ttf-dejavu-udeb ttf-dejavu-udeb] and [http://packages.debian.org/unstable/debian-installer/ttf-freefont-udeb ttf-freefont-udeb]). Usually, such requests will come from one of the team members.

But defoma needs hints for your font. Run the following command to generate them:

$ /usr/bin/defoma-hints truetype *.ttf > debian/hints

(replace truetype with your fonts type, of course)

And you are done with the technical part of your package. Now be really careful about the font licensing and fill debian/copyright accordingly and accurately. Upstream fonts very often lack clear information about the font license so you might need to talk with the font author. Even be prepared to explain her/him the differences between licences. When in doubt, or if you don't feel like you have the needed skills for this, please redirect her/him to the debian-legal@lists.debian.org mailing list.

After completing these steps, you should be able to build your package and use it.