Your PhP script had no use of True Type Fonts, so just because it ran, dosn't mean your GD libs are up to doing TrueType.

Your problem is just setting up your True Type fonts correctly.

It is a well known problem that GD requires full path names to the ttf file. Just specifying 'arial' won't do. Also read "perldoc GD" and look for the section "Character and String Drawing", wherein it says

  $font = GD::Font->load($fontfilepath)
           This method dynamically loads a font file, returning a font
+ that you can use in subsequent calls to drawing methods.  For
           example:

              my $courier = GD::Font->load('./courierR12.fnt') or die 
+"Can't load font";
              $image->string($courier,2,10,"Peachy Keen",$peach);
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