You can download the .jar file . Make it executable (if you are on a UNIX-like operating system) and then run it.

If you are using Gradle and you added “Tools” extension to your project, you can easily run Hiero from your IDE, otherwise look at Downloading Hiero.

Example for IntelliJ IDEA: Go to the Hiero class, right click and select . On the Run configurations popup that will appear, select the Desktop module, and click Run.

Hiero has multiple options for rasterizing fonts:

  • Java’s font rendering provides the vector outline for the glyphs which allows various effects to be applied, such as a drop shadow, outline, etc. Output is often blurry at small sizes, but larger sizes are good quality.
  • OS native rendering is the most simplistic. It does not provide tightly fitting bounds, so glyphs take up more atlas space.

Hiero will output kerning information for fonts with kerning entries.

  • --input <file> or -i <file> loads the specified .hiero configuration file when launching.
  • --output <file> or sets the output .fnt file to the specified value.
  • --batch or -b makes hiero automatically generate it’s output and close to be used without human intervention.
  • --scale <scale> or scales the font by the specified amount.

BitmapFontWriter is a class in gdx-tools which can write BMFont files from a BitmapFontData instance. This allows a font to be generated using FreeTypeFontGenerator, then written to a font file and PNG files. BitmapFontWriter has the benefit that it can be more easily run from scripts and can make use of FreeTypeFontGenerator’s shadows and borders. Otherwise, the output is very similar to Hiero, though Hiero avoids writing a glyph image multiple times if different character codes render the same glyph.

Usage can look like this:

Glyph Designer

is a commercial bitmap font tool designed specifically for Mac. It allows you to create beautifully styled text with custom backgrounds, gradient fills, gradient strokes & shadows. The command line interface allows you to export multi-lingual character sets and target multiple device profiles. At time of writing Glyph Designer is priced at $39.99.

BMFont

The tool uses FreeType. It has additional supersampling features for smoother glyphs. BMFont does not support effects like drop-shadows or outlines, but glyphs can be output with padding and effects applied with Paint.NET, Photoshop, etc. Typical export settings are here.

BMFont is Windows only but can be run using . There are reports that it hangs if the space character is exported. The space character can be added manually, eg:

    Change the xadvance as needed, this is the number of pixels for a space character.

    gdx-fontpack

    The tool also uses FreeType. It doesn’t yet support supersampling.

    FontPacker

    The tool is written in C# and uses .NET’s TextRenderer, FontFamily, and Graphics classes to render.

    ShoeBox has a tool for creating Angel Code fonts.

    JME

    jMonkeyEngine has an Angel Code font tool, though it looks simplistic and most likely uses Java’s font rendering.

    bmglyph

    The bmglyph tool is for OS X only and hasn’t been evaluated.