Calligro
A downloadable tool for Windows and Linux
Calligro lets you generate custom fonts from images created in graphics software like Gimp, Photoshop, Aseprite and others.
The workflow is as follows:
- generate a Calligro template (which is a .png image)
- draw your characters on the template in any graphics editor
- load the filled template back into Calligro and save a bitmap font
This tool is open source. You can find the source code on GitHub. We also maintain a web version at calligro.ideasalmanac.com. It has the same core feature but the offline version is a bit more convenient.
Calligro generates fonts in the BMFont format. A lot of game engines and frameworks support it out of the box. This includes Godot, Phaser.js, LibGDX, Heaps.io, HaxeFlixel and others.
You can also generate non-monospace fonts but only Godot seems to support it.
Be sure to check out the official tutorial
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Shiitake Edition - Migrated to a new backend19 days ago
- Hot Reload Aseprite Templates55 days ago
- Aseprite Support & Discord Server71 days ago
- Calligro 2Jul 19, 2025
- New Update & Official Tutorial Now AvailableDec 02, 2024
- Template saving bug fixJun 28, 2023
- File loading bug fixJun 14, 2023
- Prefilling templates with vector fontsMay 09, 2023
Comments
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This looks great (tried the web version a bit) but when I run the Linux version I get a blank window. This happens on two different machines, one Fedora 43 and one Arch Linux. If you want I can open an issue on github.
Thanks!
Thanks for letting me know. No need to create an issue, I'm working on it
Just to let you know, the newest version (2.3.0) should work properly on Linux
Thanks, it's working fine!
Hello, thank you for publishing this tool. I have a question, do you know of a software that can convert fonts created with Calligro into web font, or at least into some format that can be converted into web font?
I'm looking to create pixel-perfect pixel art font for an HTML game and so creating a bitmap font first seems the easiest way (if that's even possible), and I'm not sure if Calligro will be of help there.
I don't think it's possible to do it in a way that would let you use it in HTML/CSS.
But you can display a bitmap font in <canvas> using, for example, pixi.js or phaser
There is no way to add the space character back once it was removed
Thank you, the issue has been fixed in the latest release
:D
Hold on...there's a font type out there that allows for COLOR on a per character basis?! I think I'm going to have a lot of fun with this here program...
In the Templates section, the Save Template button does not respond. All the fields are filled. Windows-64 version.
Thanks for the report. The issue is now fixed
Thanks for the fast fix.