Warcraft 2 Font Library (war2-fnt)

A library and CLI tool to convert Blizzard's font files used in Warcraft 2 into BMFont format (text + PNG) and back. It also supports splitting fonts into individual character images for easy editing.

Special thanks to the Warcraft 2 forum community for documenting the file format. Original post

Features

• Reader: Read .fnt files and convert them to BMFont format.
• Writer: turn BMFont data back into binary .fnt files.
• CLI: Command-line interface for quick conversions.
• Split/Stitch: Break down fonts into individual images for editing and recombine them.
• Palette Support: Specify custom palettes for better previews and easier editing.

Installation

npm install war2-fnt
# or
pnpm add war2-fnt

CLI Usage

You can use the CLI directly via npx or after installing globally.

1. Unpack (.fnt -> BMFont + PNG)

Converts a binary font file into a standard .fnt descriptor and a .png atlas.

npx war2-fnt unpack input.fnt --output ./output --palette palette.json

• --output (-o): Output directory.
• --palette (-p): (Optional) JSON file containing an array of color objects to use given indices. If omitted, a default palette is used.

2. Pack (BMFont + PNG -> .fnt)

Converts a BMFont file and its corresponding image atlas back into the Warcraft 2 binary format.

npx war2-fnt pack font.fnt font.png --output new_font.fnt --palette palette.json

3. Split (.fnt -> Single Images)

Extracts every character from the font into its own separate PNG file. Useful for manual editing.

npx war2-fnt split input.fnt --output ./chars --palette palette.json

Output:

• char_32.png, [...], char_65.png, ...
• metadata.json (Stores offsets and spacing info)

4. Stitch (Single Images -> .fnt)

Recombines a directory of character images and a metadata.json file into a binary .fnt file.

npx war2-fnt stitch ./chars --output new_font.fnt --palette palette.json

5. Info (.fnt Metadata)

Quickly inspect font metrics and glyph counts.

npx war2-fnt info input.fnt

6. Render (Text Preview)

Render a string of text into a PNG image for previewing.

# Simple text
npx war2-fnt render input.fnt "Hello World" -o preview.png

# Multi-palette JSON (Minecraft style)
npx war2-fnt render input.fnt '[{"text": "A", "palette": "grayscale"}, {"text": "B", "palette": "other"}]'

Palettes

You can define your own palettes by providing external JSON file (array of {r, g, b, a}). By default, the tool uses the grayscale palette.

Programmatic Usage

import { War2Font, fntToBMFontAndPixelData, FontChar } from "war2-fnt";
import * as fs from "fs";

// 1. Reading a font
const buffer = fs.readFileSync("font.fnt").buffer;
const font = War2Font.fromBuffer(buffer);
const chars = font.getChars();

// 2. Converting to BMFont
const result = fntToBMFontAndPixelData(buffer, "MyFont", "font.png");
fs.writeFileSync("font.fnt", result.BMFTextBuffer);
// result.pixelData contains raw palette indices

// 3. Creating from scratch
const myChars: FontChar[] = [];
const newChar = new FontChar(/*Basic char detail*/);
// edit your char here
myChars.push(newChar);

const newFont = War2Font.fromGlyphs(myChars, 1);
const binaryInfo = newFont.write();