Novus Convert
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Font format

BDF converter

A .bdf file is a bitmap font written as plain text. Each glyph is stored as a small grid of hexadecimal rows describing which pixels are lit, together with its bounding box, advance width, and character encoding — no curves, no hinting, just the exact pixels the font was designed to produce at one specific size.

Private for supported formats — processed in your browser

Convert supported files

Runs on your device

Drop BDF files here

Batch files can each use a different output. Nothing uploads for local conversions.

Working inputs include camera RAW, browser-local audio/video, PDF, CBZ/CBR comics, office documents, ebooks, markup, 3D models, structured text, images, and archives.

Where BDF comes from

Adobe published the Glyph Bitmap Distribution Format in 1987 as a portable way to ship bitmap fonts between systems, and version 2.1 in 1993 became the version almost everything implements. The X Window System adopted it as its standard font interchange format, and it remains the format of choice for terminal fonts, embedded displays, and retro-computing projects where pixel-exact output matters more than scalability.

How BDF works

  • The whole file is ASCII text: STARTFONT, FONTBOUNDINGBOX, and a STARTCHAR/ENDCHAR block per glyph, which makes it readable and diffable.
  • Each glyph's BITMAP section holds one hexadecimal string per row, padded up to a whole number of bytes, with the most significant bit as the leftmost pixel.
  • BBX gives the glyph's own bounding box and its offset from the origin, so glyphs can sit above or below the baseline independently of the font box.
  • DWIDTH carries the advance width in pixels, and the optional properties block records FONT_ASCENT, FONT_DESCENT, PIXEL_SIZE, and the family name.
  • A BDF font is designed for exactly one pixel size; scaling it means resampling a bitmap, not re-rendering an outline.

When to use BDF

  • Bringing a terminal or retro-computing bitmap font into a browser or design tool that only loads outline fonts.
  • Publishing a pixel font on the web, where WOFF2 is the only format worth serving.
  • Preserving an X11-era font in a container that modern operating systems will install.
  • Producing a pixel-exact display face for a game or embedded UI from an existing bitmap source.

Strengths and limitations

Strengths

  • Plain text, so a font can be read, edited, and version-controlled without special tools.
  • Pixel-exact by definition: what the file describes is exactly what renders at its design size.
  • Compact and trivial to parse, which is why embedded and terminal software still uses it.
  • Carries real metrics — advance widths, bounding boxes, ascent and descent — rather than leaving them to the renderer.

Limitations

  • Single-size by design; enlarging a BDF font produces visible stair-stepping rather than smooth glyphs.
  • No modern operating system or browser installs one directly, so conversion is a prerequisite for most uses.
  • Files grow quickly with glyph count because every pixel row is spelled out in text.

Compatibility

X11, FreeType, fontforge, and most terminal emulators read .bdf, but Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and every browser require an outline font instead. Novus Convert traces the bitmap locally into pixel-aligned TrueType contours and writes .ttf or .woff2, so the pixels survive exactly while the container becomes one the platform will actually load.

The family name, pixel size, and FONT_ASCENT/FONT_DESCENT values are carried into the converted font's name and vertical-metric tables, and each glyph keeps its DWIDTH advance and encoding. XLFD property fields that have no sfnt equivalent are dropped.

Convert BDF to another format