bdf2ufo

bdf2ufo is a tool for converting .bdf bitmap fonts into .ufo sources, enabling the creation of both static and variable vector fonts.

It bridges the gap between classic pixel-based design and modern font production workflows—making it easy to bring legacy bitmap fonts into contemporary type systems.

Features

Variable Font Axes

bdf2ufo provides built-in support for six expressive axes tailored to pixel typography:

• Weight (wght)
• Width (wdth)
• Slant (slnt)
• Roundness (ROND)
• Bleed (BLED)
• Jitter (JITT)

These axes allow you to simulate the rendering quirks of historical display technologies such as LCD screens, CRT monitors, and dot matrix printers, while remaining fully compatible with modern OpenType variable font workflows.

Smart Glyph Construction

• Element Glyph System

  Reuses a base “element” glyph to construct characters efficiently, reducing file size and complexity.

• Automatic Decomposition

  Decomposes composite glyphs when needed for better compatibility and editing.

• Anchor Generation

  Automatically adds:

  • base-to-mark anchors
  • mark-to-mark anchors

Axes overview

Tag	Name	Small	Large
wght	Weight
wdth	Width
slnt	Slant
ROND	Roundness
BLED	Bleed
EJIT	Jitter

Getting Started

1. Convert your source font (if needed)

If your font is in .ttf or .otf, convert it to .bdf using otf2bdf:

• macOS (Homebrew)

  brew install otf2bdf

• Ubuntu

  sudo apt install otf2bdf

• Windows Download from: http://sofia.nmsu.edu/~mleisher/Software/otf2bdf/

2. Set up your environment

Make sure you have:

• Python
• pip

Install dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Prepare your project

• Create an empty directory for your .ufo masters
• Review the example config: sources/PressStart2P/PressStart2P-build-config.yaml

4. Run bdf2ufo

View CLI usage:

python -m scripts.bdf2ufo.cli

5. Build your fonts

Create a config.yaml in your masters directory, then compile using:

gftools builder [masters-path]/config.yaml

Fonts using bdf2ufo

• Tiny5 https://github.com/Gissio/font_Tiny5

• DotMatrix https://github.com/Gissio/font_DotMatrix

Additional Resources

• Bits'N'Picas – Bitmap font editor https://github.com/kreativekorp/bitsnpicas

• FontDrop! – Online font inspector https://fontdrop.info/

• Fontspector – Visual font QA and reporting tool https://fonttools.github.io/fontspector/

• The Font Testing Page – Browser-based font testing https://www.impallari.com/testing/

• Shaperglot – Language support checker https://googlefonts.github.io/shaperglot/

• Hyperglot – Language support checker https://hyperglot.rosettatype.com/

• What Unicode character is this? – Identify Unicode characters by symbol, code point, or name https://www.babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/whatisit.html

• SYMBL – Unicode character reference https://symbl.cc/

• Combining characters – Easy access to combining Unicode marks https://sheeptester.github.io/javascripts/combining.html