#!/usr/bin/perl
use Image::Magick;

$q = Image::Magick->new();
$q->Set(size => '80x20');
$q->Read('xc:white');
$q->Annotate(
   text      => 'Hi There',
   font      => '/usr/share/fonts/truetype/freefont/FreeSerif.ttf',
   pointsize => 18,
   fill      => 'black',
   gravity   => 'Center',
);
$q->Write('whatever.png'); # who needs error checks?!? ;)
[download]

PERFECT
That's they way to do it!
Looks like, I needed a guide to where the fonts are: I found a working one here: '/usr/share/fonts/hebrew/Aharoni-Book.pfa'
There are others with '.afm' extension, that don't seem to work, but who cares, I'm Excited as long as even '.pfa' works!
Whoohoo (8D

Ok, I even have more for you, fasten your seat belt.

(Re-)Looking at the docs, I (re-)saw that it's possible to have a list of the known-of fonts like this:

perl -MImage::Magick -le '
  print join("\n* ", "installed fonts:", Image::Magick->QueryFont())'
installed fonts:
* AvantGarde-Book
* AvantGarde-BookOblique
* AvantGarde-Demi
* AvantGarde-DemiOblique
* Bookman-Demi
* Bookman-DemiItalic
* Bookman-Light
* Bookman-LightItalic
* Courier
* Courier-Bold
* Courier-BoldOblique
* Courier-Oblique
* Helvetica
* Helvetica-Bold
* Helvetica-BoldOblique
* Helvetica-Narrow
* Helvetica-Narrow-Bold
* Helvetica-Narrow-BoldOblique
* Helvetica-Narrow-Oblique
* Helvetica-Oblique
* NewCenturySchlbk-Bold
* NewCenturySchlbk-BoldItalic
* NewCenturySchlbk-Italic
* NewCenturySchlbk-Roman
* Palatino-Bold
* Palatino-BoldItalic
* Palatino-Italic
* Palatino-Roman
* Symbol
* Times-Bold
* Times-BoldItalic
* Times-Italic
* Times-Roman
[download]

So I did have those fonts "installed" in some way or another. But still I was unable to use them.

An independent check with the montage program, on the other hand, showed that these fonts are known to it and that it could actually use them. So they also had to be somewhere. By the way, you can ask the list of fonts like this:

shell$ mogrify -list Font  # or Type, for older IM

Path: /usr/lib/ImageMagick-6.0.6/config/type-ghostscript.mgk

Name                             Family                  Style   Stret
+ch  Weight
----------------------------------------------------------------------
+----------
AvantGarde-Book                  AvantGarde              Normal  Norma
+l    400
AvantGarde-BookOblique           AvantGarde              Oblique Norma
+l    400
AvantGarde-Demi                  AvantGarde              Normal  Norma
+l    600
AvantGarde-DemiOblique           AvantGarde              Oblique Norma
+l    600
Bookman-Demi                     Bookman                 Normal  Norma
+l    600
Bookman-DemiItalic               Bookman                 Italic  Norma
+l    600
Bookman-Light                    Bookman                 Normal  Norma
+l    300
Bookman-LightItalic              Bookman                 Italic  Norma
+l    300
Courier                          Courier                 Normal  Norma
+l    400
Courier-Bold                     Courier                 Normal  Norma
+l    700
Courier-BoldOblique              Courier                 Oblique Norma
+l    700
Courier-Oblique                  Courier                 Oblique Norma
+l    400
Helvetica                        Helvetica               Normal  Norma
+l    400
Helvetica-Bold                   Helvetica               Normal  Norma
+l    700
Helvetica-BoldOblique            Helvetica               Italic  Norma
+l    700
Helvetica-Narrow                 Helvetica Narrow        Normal  Conde
+nsed 400
Helvetica-Narrow-Bold            Helvetica Narrow        Normal  Conde
+nsed 700
Helvetica-Narrow-BoldOblique     Helvetica Narrow        Oblique Conde
+nsed 700
Helvetica-Narrow-Oblique         Helvetica Narrow        Oblique Conde
+nsed 400
Helvetica-Oblique                Helvetica               Italic  Norma
+l    400
NewCenturySchlbk-Bold            NewCenturySchlbk        Normal  Norma
+l    700
NewCenturySchlbk-BoldItalic      NewCenturySchlbk        Italic  Norma
+l    700
NewCenturySchlbk-Italic          NewCenturySchlbk        Italic  Norma
+l    400
NewCenturySchlbk-Roman           NewCenturySchlbk        Normal  Norma
+l    400
Palatino-Bold                    Palatino                Normal  Norma
+l    700
Palatino-BoldItalic              Palatino                Italic  Norma
+l    700
Palatino-Italic                  Palatino                Italic  Norma
+l    400
Palatino-Roman                   Palatino                Normal  Norma
+l    400
Symbol                           Symbol                  Normal  Norma
+l    400
Times-Bold                       Times                   Normal  Norma
+l    700
Times-BoldItalic                 Times                   Italic  Norma
+l    700
Times-Italic                     Times                   Italic  Norma
+l    400
Times-Roman                      Times                   Normal  Norma
+l    400
[download]

Note the

Path: /usr/lib/ImageMagick-6.0.6/config/type-ghostscript.mgk
[download]

line: this is the file where the "known fonts" are configured.

Then I suddenly remembered that to install Image::Magick you can't go through CPAN, but you have to recompile the whole ImageMagick... click! The ImageMagick programs I'm using are those that came with my Linux distro, but the Image::Magick Perl stuff isn't. So, I went where I installed this recompiled IM (in /opt/ImageMagick), and used the path above to look for the font configuration file, which happens to be in /opt/ImageMagick/lib/ImageMagick-<version>/config. The file was called a bit differently - xml extension instead of mgk - but the format was the same. Except that the paths inside were all wrong!

Well, it was easy at this point. I simply copied the type-ghostscript.mgk file from the old IM to the type-ghostscript.xml file in the new IM, and voilą - "standard" fonts work now, even without giving the full path.

Due to the Image::Magick installation process, I suspect that you could suffer from a similar problem. Hope this helps!

Flavio
perl -ple'$_=reverse' <<<ti.xittelop@oivalf

Io ho capito... ma tu che hai detto?