Minecraft Font Generator

Convert Minecraft's bitmap font glyphs into fully functional OpenType (.otf) or TrueType (.ttf) font files.

Important

This tool downloads and processes copyrighted bitmap assets owned by Mojang AB (a Microsoft subsidiary) at runtime. The font textures are extracted directly from the official Minecraft client JAR and are never distributed with this repository. You are responsible for ensuring your use of the generated font files complies with the Minecraft EULA and Minecraft Usage Guidelines.

Features

Any Minecraft version - Select any release or snapshot via the Mojang Piston API
OpenType (CFF) or TrueType - Choose your preferred outline format
Multiple font styles - Generate Regular, Bold, Italic, BoldItalic, plus alternate scripts (Galactic, Illageralt) on supported versions
GNU Unifont fallback - Optionally include thousands of extra Unicode glyphs from GNU Unifont for broad script coverage
BMP + SMP support - Generates cmap Format 4 (Basic Multilingual Plane) and Format 12 (Supplementary Multilingual Plane) tables
Pixel-perfect tracing - Flood-fill contour tracing converts bitmap pixels into clean vector outlines
Debug SVG output - Optionally dump per-glyph SVG files for visual inspection
Non-interactive mode - Fully scriptable with CLI arguments and environment variables for CI/CD and Docker workflows

Getting Started

Prerequisites

Requirement	Version	Notes
Python	3.10+	Required
pip	Latest	Included with Python
Git	2.x+	For cloning the repository

Installation

Clone the repository and create a virtual environment:

git clone https://github.com/minecraft-library/font-generator.git
cd font-generator

Linux / macOS

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate

Windows

python -m venv .venv
.venv\Scripts\activate

Install the package and its dependencies:

pip install -e .

Usage

Interactive Mode

When no --version flag or MCFONT_VERSION env var is set, the tool launches an interactive prompt where you can search and select a Minecraft version:

python -m minecraft_fontgen

The interactive prompt supports the following commands:

Command	Description
`<version>`	Enter a version number directly (e.g., `1.21.4`)
`r` or `releases`	List all available release versions
`s` or `snapshots`	List all available snapshot versions
`h`, `?`, or `help`	Show help
`exit` or `quit`	Exit the tool

Non-Interactive Mode

For automation, CI/CD pipelines, or Docker, provide the Minecraft version upfront to skip the interactive prompt entirely:

# Via CLI argument
python -m minecraft_fontgen --version 1.21.4

# Via environment variable
MCFONT_VERSION=1.21.4 python -m minecraft_fontgen

# Combine multiple options
python -m minecraft_fontgen --version 1.21.4 --styles regular,bold --output dist/fonts --silent

IntelliJ IDEA

The repository includes a shared run configuration for IntelliJ IDEA and PyCharm. After opening the project, the main configuration appears automatically in the Run/Debug toolbar.

To run or debug:

Open the project in IntelliJ IDEA or PyCharm.
Select main from the run configuration dropdown in the toolbar.
Click Run (▶) or Debug (🪲) to start the tool.

The configuration runs python -m minecraft_fontgen using the project's Python virtual environment with these environment variables pre-set:

Variable	Value	Purpose
`MCFONT_VALIDATE`	`1`	Runs FontForge validation after build
`PYTHONUNBUFFERED`	`1`	Ensures real-time console output

To pass additional arguments (e.g. --version 1.21.4), open the configuration editor (Run > Edit Configurations) and add them to the Parameters field. You can also add or override environment variables in the Environment variables section of the same dialog.

Configuration

All options are optional. Values are resolved in this order (highest priority first):

CLI argument  >  Shell environment variable  >  .env file  >  config.py defaults

CLI	Env Var	Description	Default	Example
`--version`	`MCFONT_VERSION`	Minecraft version to compile (skips interactive prompt)	Interactive prompt	`1.21.4`
`--output`	`MCFONT_OUTPUT`	Directory for generated font files	`output`	`dist/fonts`
`--styles`	`MCFONT_STYLES`	Comma-separated font styles to generate	All enabled in `config.py`	`regular,bold`
`--type`	`MCFONT_TYPE`	Font type: `opentype`/`otf` or `truetype`/`ttf`	`opentype`	`opentype`
`--silent`	`MCFONT_SILENT`	Suppress all output except errors	Disabled	`true`
`--validate`	`MCFONT_VALIDATE`	Run FontForge validation after build (requires `fontforge`)	Disabled	`true`

Boolean flags accept 1, true, or yes. Valid styles: regular, bold, italic, bolditalic, galactic, illageralt.

# Only generate Regular and Bold
python -m minecraft_fontgen --styles regular,bold

# Custom output directory
python -m minecraft_fontgen --output build/fonts

# Silent mode for scripts
python -m minecraft_fontgen --silent --version 1.21.4

# Using environment variables
MCFONT_VERSION=1.21.4 MCFONT_STYLES=regular,bold python -m minecraft_fontgen

Note

The --styles flag controls which style variants are generated. BoldItalic is only produced when both bold and italic are present or bolditalic is explicitly listed.

The .env file

You can create a .env file in the project root to set defaults without modifying your shell environment. The file is loaded automatically at startup.

# .env
MCFONT_VERSION=1.21.4
MCFONT_OUTPUT=output
MCFONT_STYLES=regular,bold,italic,bolditalic,galactic,illageralt
MCFONT_TYPE=opentype
MCFONT_SILENT=false
MCFONT_VALIDATE=false

Values from .env will not overwrite variables that already exist in your shell environment. For example, if MCFONT_OUTPUT=dist is in your .env but you run python -m minecraft_fontgen --output build, the output directory will be build.

Output

Generated font files are written to the output directory (default: output/):

output/
├── Minecraft-Regular.otf
├── Minecraft-Bold.otf
├── Minecraft-Italic.otf
├── Minecraft-BoldItalic.otf
├── Minecraft-Galactic.otf      # Minecraft 1.13+ only
└── Minecraft-Illageralt.otf    # Minecraft 1.13+ only

Note

Galactic (Standard Galactic Alphabet) and Illageralt (Illager Runic Script) are only available on Minecraft versions that include their font provider JSON files (1.13+). On older versions these styles are automatically skipped.

The file extension is .otf for OpenType (CFF) or .ttf for TrueType, controlled by --type / MCFONT_TYPE (or the OPENTYPE constant in config.py).

Unicode Coverage

The generated fonts include glyphs from two sources:

Minecraft bitmap providers - Glyphs from the game's PNG textures (always included)
GNU Unifont fallback - Additional glyphs from GNU Unifont for broader script coverage (1.13+)

Important

Unifont contains ~113,000 glyphs across BMP and SMP, but CFF fonts are limited to 65,535 glyphs. The UNIFONT_RANGES list in config.py controls which Unicode blocks are included from Unifont (1.13+) or glyph_sizes.bin (1.12.2 and earlier). Each block can be toggled True/False to customize coverage.

BMP coverage - Basic Multilingual Plane (U+0000–U+FFFF)

Range	Block	Status
U+0000–U+007F	Basic Latin	✅ Enabled
U+0080–U+00FF	Latin-1 Supplement	✅ Enabled
U+0100–U+017F	Latin Extended-A	✅ Enabled
U+0180–U+024F	Latin Extended-B	✅ Enabled
U+0250–U+02AF	IPA Extensions	✅ Enabled
U+02B0–U+02FF	Spacing Modifier Letters	✅ Enabled
U+0300–U+036F	Combining Diacritical Marks	✅ Enabled
U+0370–U+03FF	Greek and Coptic	✅ Enabled
U+0400–U+04FF	Cyrillic	✅ Enabled
U+0500–U+052F	Cyrillic Supplement	✅ Enabled
U+0530–U+058F	Armenian	✅ Enabled
U+0590–U+05FF	Hebrew	✅ Enabled
U+0600–U+06FF	Arabic	✅ Enabled
U+0700–U+074F	Syriac	✅ Enabled
U+0750–U+077F	Arabic Supplement	✅ Enabled
U+0780–U+07BF	Thaana	✅ Enabled
U+07C0–U+07FF	NKo	✅ Enabled
U+0800–U+083F	Samaritan	❌ Disabled
U+0840–U+085F	Mandaic	❌ Disabled
U+0860–U+086F	Syriac Supplement	❌ Disabled
U+0870–U+089F	Arabic Extended-B	❌ Disabled
U+08A0–U+08FF	Arabic Extended-A	❌ Disabled
U+0900–U+097F	Devanagari	✅ Enabled
U+0980–U+09FF	Bengali	❌ Disabled
U+0A00–U+0A7F	Gurmukhi	❌ Disabled
U+0A80–U+0AFF	Gujarati	❌ Disabled
U+0B00–U+0B7F	Oriya	❌ Disabled
U+0B80–U+0BFF	Tamil	❌ Disabled
U+0C00–U+0C7F	Telugu	❌ Disabled
U+0C80–U+0CFF	Kannada	❌ Disabled
U+0D00–U+0D7F	Malayalam	✅ Enabled
U+0D80–U+0DFF	Sinhala	✅ Enabled
U+0E00–U+0E7F	Thai	✅ Enabled
U+0E80–U+0EFF	Lao	❌ Disabled
U+0F00–U+0FFF	Tibetan	✅ Enabled
U+1000–U+109F	Myanmar	❌ Disabled
U+10A0–U+10FF	Georgian	✅ Enabled
U+1100–U+11FF	Hangul Jamo	✅ Enabled
U+1200–U+137F	Ethiopic	✅ Enabled
U+1380–U+139F	Ethiopic Supplement	❌ Disabled
U+13A0–U+13FF	Cherokee	❌ Disabled
U+1400–U+167F	Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics	❌ Disabled
U+1680–U+169F	Ogham	❌ Disabled
U+16A0–U+16FF	Runic	❌ Disabled
U+1700–U+171F	Tagalog	❌ Disabled
U+1720–U+173F	Hanunoo	❌ Disabled
U+1740–U+175F	Buhid	❌ Disabled
U+1760–U+177F	Tagbanwa	❌ Disabled
U+1780–U+17FF	Khmer	❌ Disabled
U+1800–U+18AF	Mongolian	✅ Enabled
U+18B0–U+18FF	Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics Extended	❌ Disabled
U+1900–U+194F	Limbu	❌ Disabled
U+1950–U+197F	Tai Le	❌ Disabled
U+1980–U+19DF	New Tai Lue	❌ Disabled
U+19E0–U+19FF	Khmer Symbols	❌ Disabled
U+1A00–U+1A1F	Buginese	❌ Disabled
U+1A20–U+1AAF	Tai Tham	❌ Disabled
U+1AB0–U+1AFF	Combining Diacritical Marks Extended	❌ Disabled
U+1B00–U+1B7F	Balinese	❌ Disabled
U+1B80–U+1BBF	Sundanese	❌ Disabled
U+1BC0–U+1BFF	Batak	❌ Disabled
U+1C00–U+1C4F	Lepcha	❌ Disabled
U+1C50–U+1C7F	Ol Chiki	❌ Disabled
U+1C80–U+1C8F	Cyrillic Extended-C	❌ Disabled
U+1C90–U+1CBF	Georgian Extended	❌ Disabled
U+1CC0–U+1CCF	Sundanese Supplement	❌ Disabled
U+1CD0–U+1CFF	Vedic Extensions	❌ Disabled
U+1D00–U+1D7F	Phonetic Extensions	✅ Enabled
U+1D80–U+1DBF	Phonetic Extensions Supplement	✅ Enabled
U+1DC0–U+1DFF	Combining Diacritical Marks Supplement	✅ Enabled
U+1E00–U+1EFF	Latin Extended Additional	✅ Enabled
U+1F00–U+1FFF	Greek Extended	✅ Enabled
U+2000–U+206F	General Punctuation	✅ Enabled
U+2070–U+209F	Superscripts and Subscripts	✅ Enabled
U+20A0–U+20CF	Currency Symbols	✅ Enabled
U+20D0–U+20FF	Combining Diacritical Marks for Symbols	✅ Enabled
U+2100–U+214F	Letterlike Symbols	✅ Enabled
U+2150–U+218F	Number Forms	✅ Enabled
U+2190–U+21FF	Arrows	✅ Enabled
U+2200–U+22FF	Mathematical Operators	✅ Enabled
U+2300–U+23FF	Miscellaneous Technical	✅ Enabled
U+2400–U+243F	Control Pictures	✅ Enabled
U+2440–U+245F	Optical Character Recognition	✅ Enabled
U+2460–U+24FF	Enclosed Alphanumerics	✅ Enabled
U+2500–U+257F	Box Drawing	✅ Enabled
U+2580–U+259F	Block Elements	✅ Enabled
U+25A0–U+25FF	Geometric Shapes	✅ Enabled
U+2600–U+26FF	Miscellaneous Symbols	✅ Enabled
U+2700–U+27BF	Dingbats	✅ Enabled
U+27C0–U+27EF	Miscellaneous Mathematical Symbols-A	✅ Enabled
U+27F0–U+27FF	Supplemental Arrows-A	✅ Enabled
U+2800–U+28FF	Braille Patterns	✅ Enabled
U+2900–U+297F	Supplemental Arrows-B	✅ Enabled
U+2980–U+29FF	Miscellaneous Mathematical Symbols-B	✅ Enabled
U+2A00–U+2AFF	Supplemental Mathematical Operators	✅ Enabled
U+2B00–U+2BFF	Miscellaneous Symbols and Arrows	✅ Enabled
U+2C00–U+2C5F	Glagolitic	✅ Enabled
U+2C60–U+2C7F	Latin Extended-C	✅ Enabled
U+2C80–U+2CFF	Coptic	✅ Enabled
U+2D00–U+2D2F	Georgian Supplement	❌ Disabled
U+2D30–U+2D7F	Tifinagh	❌ Disabled
U+2D80–U+2DDF	Ethiopic Extended	❌ Disabled
U+2DE0–U+2DFF	Cyrillic Extended-A	❌ Disabled
U+2E00–U+2E7F	Supplemental Punctuation	✅ Enabled
U+2E80–U+2EFF	CJK Radicals Supplement	❌ Disabled
U+2F00–U+2FDF	Kangxi Radicals	❌ Disabled
U+2FF0–U+2FFF	Ideographic Description Characters	❌ Disabled
U+3000–U+303F	CJK Symbols and Punctuation	❌ Disabled
U+3040–U+309F	Hiragana	❌ Disabled
U+30A0–U+30FF	Katakana	❌ Disabled
U+3100–U+312F	Bopomofo	❌ Disabled
U+3130–U+318F	Hangul Compatibility Jamo	❌ Disabled
U+3190–U+319F	Kanbun	❌ Disabled
U+31A0–U+31BF	Bopomofo Extended	❌ Disabled
U+31C0–U+31EF	CJK Strokes	❌ Disabled
U+31F0–U+31FF	Katakana Phonetic Extensions	❌ Disabled
U+3200–U+32FF	Enclosed CJK Letters and Months	❌ Disabled
U+3300–U+33FF	CJK Compatibility	❌ Disabled
U+3400–U+4DBF	CJK Unified Ideographs Extension A (~6,592 glyphs)	❌ Disabled
U+4DC0–U+4DFF	Yijing Hexagram Symbols	❌ Disabled
U+4E00–U+9FFF	CJK Unified Ideographs (~20,992 glyphs)	❌ Disabled
U+A000–U+A48F	Yi Syllables	✅ Enabled
U+A490–U+A4CF	Yi Radicals	✅ Enabled
U+A4D0–U+A4FF	Lisu	❌ Disabled
U+A500–U+A63F	Vai	✅ Enabled
U+A640–U+A69F	Cyrillic Extended-B	❌ Disabled
U+A6A0–U+A6FF	Bamum	❌ Disabled
U+A700–U+A71F	Modifier Tone Letters	❌ Disabled
U+A720–U+A7FF	Latin Extended-D	✅ Enabled
U+A800–U+A82F	Syloti Nagri	❌ Disabled
U+A830–U+A83F	Common Indic Number Forms	❌ Disabled
U+A840–U+A87F	Phags-pa	❌ Disabled
U+A880–U+A8DF	Saurashtra	❌ Disabled
U+A8E0–U+A8FF	Devanagari Extended	❌ Disabled
U+A900–U+A92F	Kayah Li	❌ Disabled
U+A930–U+A95F	Rejang	❌ Disabled
U+A960–U+A97F	Hangul Jamo Extended-A	❌ Disabled
U+A980–U+A9DF	Javanese	❌ Disabled
U+A9E0–U+A9FF	Myanmar Extended-B	❌ Disabled
U+AA00–U+AA5F	Cham	✅ Enabled
U+AA60–U+AA7F	Myanmar Extended-A	❌ Disabled
U+AA80–U+AADF	Tai Viet	❌ Disabled
U+AAE0–U+AAFF	Meetei Mayek Extensions	❌ Disabled
U+AB00–U+AB2F	Ethiopic Extended-A	❌ Disabled
U+AB30–U+AB6F	Latin Extended-E	✅ Enabled
U+AB70–U+ABBF	Cherokee Supplement	❌ Disabled
U+ABC0–U+ABFF	Meetei Mayek	❌ Disabled
U+AC00–U+D7AF	Hangul Syllables (~11,184 glyphs)	❌ Disabled
U+D7B0–U+D7FF	Hangul Jamo Extended-B	❌ Disabled
U+F900–U+FAFF	CJK Compatibility Ideographs	❌ Disabled
U+FB00–U+FB4F	Alphabetic Presentation Forms	✅ Enabled
U+FB50–U+FDFF	Arabic Presentation Forms-A	❌ Disabled
U+FE00–U+FE0F	Variation Selectors	❌ Disabled
U+FE10–U+FE1F	Vertical Forms	❌ Disabled
U+FE20–U+FE2F	Combining Half Marks	✅ Enabled
U+FE30–U+FE4F	CJK Compatibility Forms	❌ Disabled
U+FE50–U+FE6F	Small Form Variants	✅ Enabled
U+FE70–U+FEFF	Arabic Presentation Forms-B	❌ Disabled
U+FF00–U+FFEF	Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms	✅ Enabled
U+FFF0–U+FFFF	Specials	✅ Enabled

SMP coverage - Supplementary Multilingual Plane (U+10000–U+1FFFF)

Range	Block	Status
U+10000–U+1007F	Linear B Syllabary	❌ Disabled
U+10080–U+100FF	Linear B Ideograms	❌ Disabled
U+10100–U+1013F	Aegean Numbers	❌ Disabled
U+10140–U+1018F	Ancient Greek Numbers	❌ Disabled
U+10190–U+101CF	Ancient Symbols	❌ Disabled
U+101D0–U+101FF	Phaistos Disc	❌ Disabled
U+10280–U+1029F	Lycian	❌ Disabled
U+102A0–U+102DF	Carian	❌ Disabled
U+102E0–U+102FF	Coptic Epact Numbers	❌ Disabled
U+10300–U+1032F	Old Italic	❌ Disabled
U+10330–U+1034F	Gothic	❌ Disabled
U+10350–U+1037F	Old Permic	❌ Disabled
U+10380–U+1039F	Ugaritic	❌ Disabled
U+103A0–U+103DF	Old Persian	❌ Disabled
U+10400–U+1044F	Deseret	❌ Disabled
U+10450–U+1047F	Shavian	❌ Disabled
U+10480–U+104AF	Osmanya	❌ Disabled
U+104B0–U+104FF	Osage	❌ Disabled
U+10500–U+1052F	Elbasan	❌ Disabled
U+10530–U+1056F	Caucasian Albanian	❌ Disabled
U+10570–U+105BF	Vithkuqi	❌ Disabled
U+10600–U+1077F	Linear A	❌ Disabled
U+10780–U+107BF	Latin Extended-F	❌ Disabled
U+10800–U+1083F	Cypriot Syllabary	❌ Disabled
U+10840–U+1085F	Imperial Aramaic	❌ Disabled
U+10860–U+1087F	Palmyrene	❌ Disabled
U+10880–U+108AF	Nabataean	❌ Disabled
U+108E0–U+108FF	Hatran	❌ Disabled
U+10900–U+1091F	Phoenician	❌ Disabled
U+10920–U+1093F	Lydian	❌ Disabled
U+10980–U+1099F	Meroitic Hieroglyphs	❌ Disabled
U+109A0–U+109FF	Meroitic Cursive	❌ Disabled
U+10A00–U+10A5F	Kharoshthi	❌ Disabled
U+10A60–U+10A7F	Old South Arabian	❌ Disabled
U+10A80–U+10A9F	Old North Arabian	❌ Disabled
U+10AC0–U+10AFF	Manichaean	❌ Disabled
U+10B00–U+10B3F	Avestan	❌ Disabled
U+10B40–U+10B5F	Inscriptional Parthian	❌ Disabled
U+10B60–U+10B7F	Inscriptional Pahlavi	❌ Disabled
U+10B80–U+10BAF	Psalter Pahlavi	❌ Disabled
U+10C00–U+10C4F	Old Turkic	❌ Disabled
U+10C80–U+10CFF	Old Hungarian	❌ Disabled
U+10D00–U+10D3F	Hanifi Rohingya	❌ Disabled
U+10E60–U+10E7F	Rumi Numeral Symbols	❌ Disabled
U+10E80–U+10EBF	Yezidi	❌ Disabled
U+10F00–U+10F2F	Old Sogdian	❌ Disabled
U+10F30–U+10F6F	Sogdian	❌ Disabled
U+10F70–U+10FAF	Old Uyghur	❌ Disabled
U+10FB0–U+10FDF	Chorasmian	❌ Disabled
U+10FE0–U+10FFF	Elymaic	❌ Disabled
U+11000–U+1107F	Brahmi	❌ Disabled
U+11080–U+110CF	Kaithi	❌ Disabled
U+110D0–U+110FF	Sora Sompeng	❌ Disabled
U+11100–U+1114F	Chakma	❌ Disabled
U+11150–U+1117F	Mahajani	❌ Disabled
U+11180–U+111DF	Sharada	❌ Disabled
U+111E0–U+111FF	Sinhala Archaic Numbers	❌ Disabled
U+11200–U+1124F	Khojki	❌ Disabled
U+11280–U+112AF	Multani	❌ Disabled
U+112B0–U+112FF	Khudawadi	❌ Disabled
U+11300–U+1137F	Grantha	❌ Disabled
U+11400–U+1147F	Newa	❌ Disabled
U+11480–U+114DF	Tirhuta	❌ Disabled
U+11580–U+115FF	Siddham	❌ Disabled
U+11600–U+1165F	Modi	❌ Disabled
U+11660–U+1167F	Mongolian Supplement	❌ Disabled
U+11680–U+116CF	Takri	❌ Disabled
U+11700–U+1174F	Ahom	❌ Disabled
U+11800–U+1184F	Dogra	❌ Disabled
U+118A0–U+118FF	Warang Citi	❌ Disabled
U+11900–U+1195F	Dives Akuru	❌ Disabled
U+119A0–U+119FF	Nandinagari	❌ Disabled
U+11A00–U+11A4F	Zanabazar Square	❌ Disabled
U+11A50–U+11AAF	Soyombo	❌ Disabled
U+11AB0–U+11ABF	Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics Extended-A	❌ Disabled
U+11AC0–U+11AFF	Pau Cin Hau	❌ Disabled
U+11C00–U+11C6F	Bhaiksuki	❌ Disabled
U+11C70–U+11CBF	Marchen	❌ Disabled
U+11D00–U+11D5F	Masaram Gondi	❌ Disabled
U+11D60–U+11DAF	Gunjala Gondi	❌ Disabled
U+11EE0–U+11EFF	Makasar	❌ Disabled
U+11FB0–U+11FBF	Lisu Supplement	❌ Disabled
U+11FC0–U+11FFF	Tamil Supplement	❌ Disabled
U+12000–U+123FF	Cuneiform	❌ Disabled
U+12400–U+1247F	Cuneiform Numbers and Punctuation	❌ Disabled
U+12480–U+1254F	Early Dynastic Cuneiform	❌ Disabled
U+12F90–U+12FFF	Cypro-Minoan	❌ Disabled
U+13000–U+1342F	Egyptian Hieroglyphs	❌ Disabled
U+13430–U+1345F	Egyptian Hieroglyph Format Controls	❌ Disabled
U+14400–U+1467F	Anatolian Hieroglyphs	❌ Disabled
U+16800–U+16A3F	Bamum Supplement	❌ Disabled
U+16A40–U+16A6F	Mro	❌ Disabled
U+16A70–U+16ACF	Tangsa	❌ Disabled
U+16AD0–U+16AFF	Bassa Vah	❌ Disabled
U+16B00–U+16B8F	Pahawh Hmong	❌ Disabled
U+16E40–U+16E9F	Medefaidrin	❌ Disabled
U+16F00–U+16F9F	Miao	❌ Disabled
U+16FE0–U+16FFF	Ideographic Symbols and Punctuation	❌ Disabled
U+17000–U+187FF	Tangut (~6,144 glyphs)	❌ Disabled
U+18800–U+18AFF	Tangut Components	❌ Disabled
U+18B00–U+18CFF	Khitan Small Script	❌ Disabled
U+18D00–U+18D7F	Tangut Supplement	❌ Disabled
U+1AFF0–U+1AFFF	Kana Extended-B	❌ Disabled
U+1B000–U+1B0FF	Kana Supplement	❌ Disabled
U+1B100–U+1B12F	Kana Extended-A	❌ Disabled
U+1B130–U+1B16F	Small Kana Extension	❌ Disabled
U+1B170–U+1B2FF	Nushu	❌ Disabled
U+1BC00–U+1BC9F	Duployan	❌ Disabled
U+1BCA0–U+1BCAF	Shorthand Format Controls	❌ Disabled
U+1CF00–U+1CFCF	Znamenny Musical Notation	❌ Disabled
U+1D000–U+1D0FF	Byzantine Musical Symbols	❌ Disabled
U+1D100–U+1D1FF	Musical Symbols	❌ Disabled
U+1D200–U+1D24F	Ancient Greek Musical Notation	❌ Disabled
U+1D2C0–U+1D2DF	Kaktovik Numerals	❌ Disabled
U+1D2E0–U+1D2FF	Mayan Numerals	❌ Disabled
U+1D300–U+1D35F	Tai Xuan Jing Symbols	❌ Disabled
U+1D360–U+1D37F	Counting Rod Numerals	❌ Disabled
U+1D400–U+1D7FF	Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols	❌ Disabled
U+1D800–U+1DAAF	Sutton SignWriting	❌ Disabled
U+1DF00–U+1DFFF	Latin Extended-G	❌ Disabled
U+1E000–U+1E02F	Glagolitic Supplement	❌ Disabled
U+1E030–U+1E08F	Cyrillic Extended-D	❌ Disabled
U+1E100–U+1E14F	Nyiakeng Puachue Hmong	❌ Disabled
U+1E290–U+1E2BF	Toto	❌ Disabled
U+1E2C0–U+1E2FF	Wancho	❌ Disabled
U+1E4D0–U+1E4FF	Nag Mundari	❌ Disabled
U+1E7E0–U+1E7FF	Ethiopic Extended-B	❌ Disabled
U+1E800–U+1E8DF	Mende Kikakui	❌ Disabled
U+1E900–U+1E95F	Adlam	❌ Disabled
U+1EC70–U+1ECBF	Indic Siyaq Numbers	❌ Disabled
U+1ED00–U+1ED4F	Ottoman Siyaq Numbers	❌ Disabled
U+1EE00–U+1EEFF	Arabic Mathematical Alphabetic Symbols	❌ Disabled
U+1F000–U+1F02F	Mahjong Tiles	❌ Disabled
U+1F030–U+1F09F	Domino Tiles	❌ Disabled
U+1F0A0–U+1F0FF	Playing Cards	❌ Disabled
U+1F100–U+1F1FF	Enclosed Alphanumeric Supplement	❌ Disabled
U+1F200–U+1F2FF	Enclosed Ideographic Supplement	❌ Disabled
U+1F300–U+1F5FF	Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs	❌ Disabled
U+1F600–U+1F64F	Emoticons	❌ Disabled
U+1F650–U+1F67F	Ornamental Dingbats	❌ Disabled
U+1F680–U+1F6FF	Transport and Map Symbols	❌ Disabled
U+1F700–U+1F77F	Alchemical Symbols	❌ Disabled
U+1F780–U+1F7FF	Geometric Shapes Extended	❌ Disabled
U+1F800–U+1F8FF	Supplemental Arrows-C	❌ Disabled
U+1F900–U+1F9FF	Supplemental Symbols and Pictographs	✅ Enabled
U+1FA00–U+1FA6F	Chess Symbols	❌ Disabled
U+1FA70–U+1FAFF	Symbols and Pictographs Extended-A	❌ Disabled
U+1FB00–U+1FBFF	Symbols for Legacy Computing	❌ Disabled

Docker Compose

Minecraft Font Generator can be used as a one-shot build task in a Docker Compose stack. This is useful when another service (a Discord bot, a web app, a resource pack compiler, etc.) needs the generated font files but you don't want to host them in a repository or keep a persistent container running.

The pattern:

An ephemeral container clones the repo, installs the tool, and compiles the fonts.
The output is written to a shared volume.
The container exits and is removed automatically.
Other services mount the same volume to consume the font files.

Basic One-Shot Task

Add this service to your project's docker-compose.yml:

services:
  font-generator:
    image: python:3-slim
    user: "1000:1000"
    working_dir: /build
    environment:
      MCFONT_VERSION: "1.21.4"
      MCFONT_STYLES: "regular,bold"
      MCFONT_SILENT: "true"
      MCFONT_OUTPUT: "/output"
      PATH: "/home/builder/.local/bin:$PATH"
    volumes:
      - fonts:/output
    entrypoint: ["bash", "-c"]
    command:
      - |
        pip install --user --quiet git+https://github.com/minecraft-library/font-generator.git &&
        minecraft-font-generator
    profiles:
      - build

volumes:
  fonts:

Tip

The profiles: [build] setting prevents this service from starting during a normal docker compose up. It only runs when explicitly invoked.

Multi-service example (bot depends on font generation)

services:
  font-generator:
    image: python:3-slim
    user: "1000:1000"
    working_dir: /build
    environment:
      MCFONT_VERSION: "1.21.4"
      MCFONT_STYLES: "regular,bold"
      MCFONT_SILENT: "true"
      MCFONT_OUTPUT: "/output"
      PATH: "/home/builder/.local/bin:$PATH"
    volumes:
      - fonts:/output
    entrypoint: ["bash", "-c"]
    command:
      - |
        pip install --user --quiet git+https://github.com/minecraft-library/font-generator.git &&
        minecraft-font-generator

  bot:
    build: .
    volumes:
      - fonts:/app/fonts:ro
    depends_on:
      font-generator:
        condition: service_completed_successfully
    environment:
      FONT_PATH: /app/fonts

volumes:
  fonts:

In this setup:

font-generator runs first, compiles the fonts into the shared fonts volume, then exits.
bot waits for font-generator to complete successfully before starting.
The bot service mounts the same volume as read-only (:ro) at /app/fonts.

Running the Task

# Run only the font generation task
docker compose run --rm font-generator

# Or if using profiles
docker compose --profile build run --rm font-generator

# Start the full stack (bot waits for font-generator to finish)
docker compose up

Note

The --rm flag automatically removes the container after it exits, so no cleanup is needed.

To rebuild fonts (e.g., after a Minecraft version update), remove the existing volume and re-run:

docker volume rm <project>_fonts
docker compose run --rm font-generator

How It Works

The tool runs a six-stage pipeline:

1. Clean       Wipes and recreates work/ and output/ directories
       ↓
2. Download    Fetches the Minecraft version manifest from the Piston API,
               downloads the client JAR, extracts font assets, and optionally
               downloads GNU Unifont hex files
       ↓
3. Parse       Detects the font asset format and parses accordingly:
               - JSON (1.13+): Reads default.json font providers with
                 explicit Unicode character mappings
               - Binary (1.12.2 and earlier): Reads glyph_sizes.bin
                 width data and unicode_page_XX.png / ascii.png textures
               Slices individual glyphs from the bitmap sheets using
               flood-fill contour tracing
       ↓
4. Build       Merges provider glyphs (high priority) with unifont fallback
               glyphs (low priority) into a unified glyph map, keyed by
               codepoint and grouped by style. Processes alternate fonts
               (Galactic, Illageralt) by overlaying their glyphs onto the
               Regular map. Pre-computes scaled coordinates (pixel space →
               font units) for all glyphs
       ↓
5. Create      Initializes fontTools TTFont tables for each enabled style,
               converts all glyphs with a single progress bar, applies italic
               shear transforms where needed, then finalizes and saves the
               font files
       ↓
6. Validate    (Optional, --validate) Runs FontForge validation on all
               generated font files, reporting per-glyph errors by type

Glyph Processing

Each bitmap glyph goes through:

Flood-fill labeling - Identifies connected pixel groups
Boundary tracing - Right-hand rule extracts contour edges
Corner extraction - Converts edges to corner points for vector outlines
Bold expansion - Bold glyphs get a 1px rightward expansion before tracing
Coordinate scaling - Pixel coordinates are mapped to font units (UNITS_PER_EM = 1024)
Italic shear - Italic variants apply a shear transform to the pre-computed coordinates
Pen drawing - T2CharStringPen for CFF outlines or TTGlyphPen for TrueType

Project Structure

font-generator/
├── minecraft_fontgen/
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── __main__.py                # python -m entry point
│   ├── main.py                    # Pipeline orchestration
│   ├── cli.py                     # Argument parsing, env var resolution
│   ├── config.py                  # Constants and runtime configuration
│   ├── piston.py                  # Mojang Piston API, JAR/unifont downloads
│   ├── file_io.py                 # Bitmap slicing, contour tracing, glyph maps
│   ├── font_creator.py            # Batch font file creation
│   ├── functions.py               # Shared utilities (logging, HTTP, codepoints)
│   ├── validate_font.py           # FontForge validation script (--validate)
│   ├── glyph/
│   │   ├── glyph.py               # Glyph scaling, transforms, pen drawing
│   │   └── glyph_storage.py       # Glyph accumulation, cmap, final output
│   └── table/                     # One file per OpenType/TrueType table
│       ├── header.py              # head
│       ├── horizontal_header.py   # hhea
│       ├── horizontal_metrics.py  # hmtx
│       ├── maximum_profile.py     # maxp
│       ├── postscript.py          # post
│       ├── name.py                # name
│       ├── os2_metrics.py         # OS/2
│       ├── glyph_mappings.py      # cmap (Format 4 + 12)
│       ├── opentype.py            # CFF tables
│       └── truetype.py            # glyf/loca tables
├── pyproject.toml
├── LICENSE.md
├── COPYRIGHT.md
├── CONTRIBUTING.md
└── CLAUDE.md

Runtime Directories

These are created during execution and excluded from version control:

Directory	Contents
`work/`	Downloaded JAR, extracted assets, sliced tile bitmaps, debug SVGs
`output/`	Generated `.otf` or `.ttf` font files

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup, code style guidelines, and how to submit a pull request.

License

This project is licensed under the Apache License 2.0 - see LICENSE for the full text.

See COPYRIGHT.md for third-party attribution notices, including information about Mojang AB's copyrighted assets and GNU Unifont licensing.

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 180 Commits
.github		.github
.idea		.idea
minecraft_fontgen		minecraft_fontgen
.gitignore		.gitignore
CLAUDE.md		CLAUDE.md
CONTRIBUTING.md		CONTRIBUTING.md
COPYRIGHT.md		COPYRIGHT.md
LICENSE.md		LICENSE.md
Minecraft-FontGen.iml		Minecraft-FontGen.iml
README.md		README.md
pyproject.toml		pyproject.toml

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Minecraft Font Generator

Table of Contents

Features

Getting Started

Prerequisites

Installation

Usage

Interactive Mode

Non-Interactive Mode

IntelliJ IDEA

Configuration

Output

Unicode Coverage

Docker Compose

Basic One-Shot Task

Running the Task

How It Works

Glyph Processing

Project Structure

Runtime Directories

Contributing

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Minecraft Font Generator

Table of Contents

Features

Getting Started

Prerequisites

Installation

Usage

Interactive Mode

Non-Interactive Mode

IntelliJ IDEA

Configuration

Output

Unicode Coverage

Docker Compose

Basic One-Shot Task

Running the Task

How It Works

Glyph Processing

Project Structure

Runtime Directories

Contributing

License

About

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