Online bitmap font creator.
Available at calligro.ideasalmanac.com
Desktop version is hosted on itch.io
Calligro generates bitmap fonts in the AngelCode's BMFont format. It can be used to convert a TTF but unlike the original BMFont and other tools it can also generate bitmap fonts from custom images.
The workflow is as follows:
- generate a Calligro template (which is a .png image)
- draw your characters on the template in any graphics editor (Photoshop, Gimp, Aseprite, anything else)
- upload the filled template back to Calligro and download a bitmap font
Everything is calculated on the client side. No files are sent or stored on the server (we use gh pages anyway).
There is also an offline version available for Windows and Linux. It has the same core features but is a little bit more convenient to use. It also detects system fonts better.
The BMFont format has existed for a while and a lot of game frameworks, libraries and engines support it out of the box. Some examples and more details on compatibility can be found in the samples/ directory.
Calligro is useful when you need to draw a custom font stored as a spritesheet. Pixelart font would be a good use.
If you only want to convert an existing truetype font into a bitmap font, you can also try one of those tools instead:
- AngelCode's BMFont
- Hiero
- ShoeBox
- Littera (requires Flash)
If you'd like to contribute: thanks!
This is a regular create-react-app project in TypeScript using npm (not yarn) so:
# install dependencies and start a dev server with hot reloading
npm install
npm start
# then optionally start the desktop app
cd electron_resources
npm install
cd ..
npm run electron:dev
# run unit tests
npm run testOur actions use Node 14.
Create the production web build in the build/ directory:
npm run buildCreate the production destop build for Windows and Linux in the electron_build/ directory:
npm run electron:build
Note this command only works on Windows.