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Font format

WOFF converter

WOFF, extension .woff, wraps an OpenType or TrueType font in zlib compression plus a small header and an optional metadata block, creating a format websites could legally and efficiently serve. It was the format that ended the web's font drought and made @font-face mainstream.

Private for supported formats — processed in your browser

Convert supported files

Runs on your device

Drop WOFF 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 WOFF comes from

Type designers Erik van Blokland and Tal Leming drafted WOFF with Mozilla's Jonathan Kew in 2009, and the W3C published it as a Recommendation in 2012. Foundries embraced it because the wrapper discouraged casual desktop installation of licensed web fonts, and within a few years it displaced EOT, raw TTF linking, and SVG fonts alike.

How WOFF works

  • Each sfnt table is individually zlib-compressed, so the structure mirrors the original font table for table.
  • A dedicated metadata block can embed vendor, licensing, and description XML without touching the font tables.
  • Decompression restores the source font's table content exactly — the wrapper is lossless.
  • Typical savings run around 40% versus the raw TTF or OTF, though Brotli-based WOFF2 beats it comfortably.

When to use WOFF

  • Web-font serving for audiences on older browsers such as IE9 and early Android
  • Acting as the fallback source behind WOFF2 in @font-face stacks
  • Hosting fonts whose licenses specifically require a wrapped web format

Strengths and limitations

Strengths

  • Broad legacy reach, with browser support stretching back to IE9 and Android 4.4
  • Lossless wrapper with licensing-friendly metadata
  • Simple, well-documented structure

Limitations

  • Superseded by WOFF2's stronger compression
  • Like all web-font wrappers, it cannot be installed as a desktop font without conversion

Compatibility

Support reaches much further back than WOFF2 — IE9, early Chrome and Firefox, and old mobile browsers all handle .woff — which kept it in font stacks for years as a safety net. Modern sites increasingly ship WOFF2 alone, and operating systems continue to require unwrapping before a .woff can be installed.

Beyond the wrapped font's own name table, the extended metadata block stores vendor, credits, description, and license information as XML.

Convert WOFF to another format

Convert other formats to WOFF