Fonts

Morrowind .fnt fonts

Morrowind uses a custom .fnt file format. It is not compatible with the Windows Font File .fnt format, nor compatible with .fnt formats from any other Bethesda games. To our knowledge, the format is undocumented and no tools for viewing or editing these fonts exist.

OpenMW can load this format and convert it on the fly into something usable (see font loader source code). In OpenMW 0.32, an --export-fonts command line option was added to write the converted font (a PNG image and an XML file describing the position of each glyph in the image) to the current directory.

TrueType fonts

Unlike vanilla Morrowind, OpenMW directly supports TrueType (.ttf) fonts. This is the recommended way to create new fonts.

Pre-0.45 way

• To replace the primary "Magic Cards" font:

• Download the Pelagiad font by Isak Larborn (aka Isaskar).
• Install the openmw_font.xml file into resources/mygui/openmw_font.xml in your OpenMW installation.
• Copy Pelagiad.ttf into resources/mygui/ as well.
• If desired, you can now delete the original Magic_Cards* files from your Data Files/Fonts directory.

• You can also replace the Daedric font:

• Download Ayembedt by Georg Duffner.
• Install OMWAyembedt.otf into /resources/mygui/ folder in your OpenMW installation.
• Add the following lines to openmw_font.xml:

   <Resource type="ResourceTrueTypeFont" name="Daedric">
       <Property key="Source" value="OMWAyembedt.otf"/>
       <Property key="Size" value="24"/>
       <Property key="Resolution" value="50"/>
       <Property key="Antialias" value="false"/>
       <Property key="TabWidth" value="8"/>
       <Property key="OffsetHeight" value="0"/>
       <Codes>
           
           
           
       </Codes>
   </Resource>

• This font is missing a few glyphs (mostly punctuation), but is complete in the primary glyphs.
• If desired, you can now delete the original daedric* files from your Data Files/Fonts directory.

• Another replacement for the Daedric font is the Oblivion font by Dongle.

• Install the Oblivion.ttf file resources/mygui/.
• The openmw_fonts.xml entry is:

   <Resource type="ResourceTrueTypeFont" name="Daedric">
       <Property key="Source" value="Oblivion.ttf"/>
       <Property key="Size" value="30"/>
       <Property key="Resolution" value="50"/>
       <Property key="Antialias" value="false"/>
       <Property key="TabWidth" value="8"/>
       <Property key="OffsetHeight" value="0"/>
       <Codes>
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
       </Codes>
   </Resource>

0.45+ way

• Download the Pelagiad font by Isak Larborn (aka Isaskar).
• Download Ayembedt by Georg Duffner or the Daedric font is the Oblivion font by Dongle.
• Create the Fonts directory near your openmw.cfg.
• Install *.ttf/*.otf files into Fonts folder.
• Create openmw_font.xml in the Fonts folder and copy entries from openmw_font.xml attached to downloaded fonts. An example for Pelagiad + Oblivion:

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
   <MyGUI type="Resource" version="1.1">
       <Resource type="ResourceTrueTypeFont" name="Magic Cards">
           <Property key="Source" value="Pelagiad.ttf"/>
           <Property key="Antialias" value="false"/>
           <Property key="TabWidth" value="8"/>
           <Property key="OffsetHeight" value="0"/>
           <Codes>
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
           
               
               
               
               
               
               
           
               
               
               
               
           </Codes>
       </Resource>
   <Resource type="ResourceTrueTypeFont" name="Daedric">
       <Property key="Source" value="Oblivion.ttf"/>
       <Property key="Antialias" value="false"/>
       <Property key="TabWidth" value="8"/>
       <Property key="OffsetHeight" value="0"/>
       <Codes>
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
       </Codes>
   </Resource>
   </MyGUI>

Note: Resolution and Size keys have no effects since they are handled by settings.cfg.

• Tweak fonts resolution and size by editing the settings.cfg to fit your DPI and resolution. Since Pelagiad glyphs are quite small, it is recommended to increase its size:

   [GUI]
   font size = 17
   ttf resolution = 96

Note: you do not need to take UI scaling factor - OpenMW will take it in account automatically.

• If desired, you can now delete the original Magic_Cards* files from your Data Files/Fonts directory.

In theory, you can use any TrueType font in the same manner.

Bitmap fonts

Morrowind .fnt files are essentially a bitmap font, but using them is discouraged because of no Unicode support. MyGUI has its own format for bitmap fonts. An example can be seen by using the --export-fonts command line option (see above), which converts Morrowind .fnt to a MyGUI bitmap font. This is the recommended format to use if you wish to edit Morrowind's bitmap font or create a new bitmap font.