Have some shiny new BitstreamVera fonts? Can't get them working in OpenOffice? Well then....

When loading OpenOffice looks for TrueType or Type1 Fonts in the following places:

• The directory /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1
• The output of the command /usr/sbin/chkfontpath
• The fontpath as returned by XGetFontPath()
• Directories given by the environment variable SAL_FONTPATH_PRIVATE, usually this variable is set by the soffice script to "openoffice_dir"/share/fonts/truetype

This method uses the output of chkfontpath.

As root

1. mkfontdir /usr/share/fonts/bitstream-vera/

This creates a fonts.dir file in your BitstreamVera fonts directory.

1. chkfontpath -a /usr/share/fonts/bitstream-vera/

This adds the directory to the chkfontpath list

Now retstart OpenOffice and look at your pretty new fonts :-)
You may like to change the default font under Tools > Options > Text Document > Basic Fonts.

Most of this information was sourced from the OpenOffice Font FAQ which has some interesting information regarding a whole lot of font problems with OpenOffice.