What is a WOFF2 file?
WOFF2 is the font file to put on a website: roughly half the size of the original desktop font, and read by every current browser. Serving a font any other way means visitors download more than they need to. You can convert WOFF2 files here, both into the format and out of it.
Specification
| Full name | Web Open Font Format 2 |
|---|---|
| Extensions | .woff2 |
| Media type | font/woff2 |
| Compression | Lossless |
| Transparency | — |
| Animation | — |
| Multiple pages | — |
| Colour depth | Brotli compression with a transformed glyf table |
| Size limits | — |
| Introduced | 2018 |
| Developed by | Google, standardised by W3C |
| Standard | Open |
| Browser support | Every browser, including older ones |
What WOFF2 is used for
- The primary @font-face source on any modern website
- Self-hosted font packages such as the Fontsource npm distributions
- Subsetted fonts cut down to the characters a page actually uses
- Variable fonts delivered over the web in a single request
Strengths and limitations
What WOFF2 does well
- The smallest widely supported font format, around half the size of TTF
- Supported by every browser in current use, so no fallback is needed
- Decompression is fast enough not to delay first paint
Where WOFF2 falls short
- Takes longer to produce than a WOFF
- Operating systems will not install it as a desktop font
- Nothing but browsers reads it, so design tools need the source TTF or OTF
Convert WOFF2 to
Every target this format can be written out as, each on its own page.
Convert to WOFF2
Everything that can be turned into a WOFF2 file.
Questions about WOFF2
What is a .woff2 file?
WOFF2 is the font file to put on a website: roughly half the size of the original desktop font, and read by every current browser. The extension .woff2 identifies it, and its media type is font/woff2.
How do I open a WOFF2 file?
Any current browser will open it directly, so dragging the file into a tab is usually enough. Most operating systems also preview it without extra software.
Is WOFF2 lossy or lossless?
Lossless. Nothing is discarded, so repeated saves never degrade the contents.
What is WOFF2 good for?
The smallest widely supported font format, around half the size of TTF. Supported by every browser in current use, so no fallback is needed. Decompression is fast enough not to delay first paint. In practice that makes it a good fit for the primary @font-face source on any modern website, and Self-hosted font packages such as the Fontsource npm distributions.
What are the drawbacks of WOFF2?
Takes longer to produce than a WOFF. Operating systems will not install it as a desktop font. Nothing but browsers reads it, so design tools need the source TTF or OTF.