Graphic drawing and image conversion.

See and edit screen previews, symbols, and fonts with the same color resolution as the display in the target system.

Edit pixel based fonts, characters, and symbols



Work with several data sets at the same time.

  • IconEdit can open many data sets at the same time.
  • Display and edit any 2 data sets at the same time for easy reference.
  • Copy and paste Symbols, Icons, and Characters between data sets.
  • Characters keep their Unicode code-point when copied to other fonts.

Image conversion with exact pixel and color resolution.

Convert pictures and images from BMP, PNG, and JPG formats to C-source symbol format.

The conversion is done with exact pixel and color resolution.

Then the symbol can be re-sized, cropped and edited.

Falcon photograph converted to a small pixel based image

A JPG photograph converted to a symbol, cropped, framed, and overwritten with a semi-transparent watermark text, then saved as a C-source symbol file or one of several Windows image formats.



Icon, symbol, and character drawing facilities.

IconEdit provides extensive graphic drawing facilities for easy creation and editing of characters and symbols.

The toolbox for edit symbols and characters provides various tools:

Drawing tools for different shapes

  • Points, lines, figures, and shapes.

Drawing tools for different functions

  • Four different kinds of flood filling strategies.
  • Stretching and squeezing.
  • Texts in movable frame with or without anti-aliasing.
  • Frames for copy and paste.

Drawing tools for moving, mirroring and turning the symbol

  • Scrolling, mirroring, and turning.

Drawing tools for character position, spacing and redraw

  • Various character spacing.
  • Character redraw.

Help tools for glyph size, alignment, and display

  • color picker for tool and background color.
  • Cropping.
  • Reference lines and frames.
  • Support for animation for easy comparison of characters and symbols.
  • Display control.

Some tools have several working modes:

anti-alias drawing tools for different shapes

  • Normal or anti-aliased lines, figures, and texts are indicated by black or white.

semi-transparent drawing tools for different shapes

  • Anti-aliased transparent lines, figures, and texts are indicated by yellow.

Drawing tools for different functions with anti-alias text

  • Different flood fill strategies are indicated by different color.
  • Texts in movable frame with anti-aliasing are indicated by white.

Drawing tools for different functions with anti-alias text

  • Different flood fill strategies are indicated by different color.
  • Texts in movable frame with semi-transparency are indicated by green or yellow for text anti-aliasing.

Drawing tools for moving, mirroring and turning part of the symbol

  • A blue frame indicates operation within a frame.

Font and symbol group editing facilities.

IconEdit provides extensive graphic editing facilities for easy creation and editing of fonts and groups of symbols.

The toolbox for edit all or selected parts of the symbols or characters provides various tools. A green frame indicates operation on selected characters only:

Drawing tools for moving, mirroring and turning part of the font

  • Scrolling, mirroring, and turning of selected symbols and characters.

Drawing tools for character position, spacing and redraw part of the font

  • Various character spacing of selected symbols.
  • Character redraw of selected symbols.

Tools for insert and re-size

  • Insert characters and symbols.
  • Reference lines and frames.
  • Re-size fonts and symbol groups.

Help tools for character select and display

  • Symbol and character selection control.
  • Display control.

Virtual Keyboard for Text in any Language

Use a combination of Normal and Virtual Keyboard to write text in any language:

Virtual Keyboard for text in Cyrillic

Virtual Keyboard for text in Arabic

Press Virtual or Normal Keyboard in any order or combination to write your text.

While you write use the Virtual Keyboard stretch and squeeze function to fit the text in a given frame:

Use Virtual Keyboard to stretch text

Use Virtual Keyboard to squeeze text

Just move the slider to fit the text in the frame.

For screen design previews move the text to the desired position:

Use Virtual Keyboard to place text

Use Virtual Keyboard to place text on screen preview

The text can be any color your display supports.

Design virtual instruments as symbols

Make virtual instruments as symbols directly in IconEdit with the symbol drawing and text placing tools.

Design of background for virtual speedometer as widget instrument:

Screen design of virtual instrument

Virtual speedometer instrument in normal size:

Screen with virtual instrument Screen with virtual instrument in use

Finished graphic interface for virtual widget dashboard instruments:

Screen design of virtual dashboard instruments

All except hands are predefined in IconEdit.

Support for use of color palettes

Support for color mapping/conversion of symbol pixel colors to palette table indexes.

Four-bit Palette with 16 standard colors

This makes it possible to reduce full RGB 24-bit per pixel color images to 2, 4 or 8-bits per pixel.

Use the build-in color optimizer in IconEdit to make an optimized color palette.

Four-bit Optimized Palette for Photograph

Then convert the image to a palette based symbol with only a small loss of color precision. The image resolution is not changed by this operation.

Use palettes for working tool colors

Use palettes for working tool colors as an efficient way to maintain a uniform color look for many symbols.

The color look will be consistent over time and across all symbols and fonts.

IconEdit suppors the following palette types:

Pure black and white Palette with a toggle function

Two-bit Palette with 4 grey-tones and a toggle function

Palettes for B&W and 2-bit Grey have an extra toggle “color” for faster editing.

Four-bit Palette with 16 standard colors

Palettes for palette based symbols has a circle to indicate the background color.

If single color transparency is used, the fully transparent color has a black-white indicator at the bottom of the button.

8-bit RGB Palette with 256 colors and 1 fully transparet color

Palettes for 8-bit RGB has one background color and one fully transparent "color" in addition to the normal colors.

24-bit RGB Palette with 256 colors and 1 fully transparet color

Palettes for 16-bit and 24-bit RGB has one background color and one fully transparent "color" in addition to the grey and normal colors.

32-bit ARGB Palette with 256 colors and transparency modifiers

Palettes for 32-bit ARGB semi-transparency have a transparency indicator for each color.

The palette has extra false “colors” for changing transparency with normal drawing tools.

Use of a palette based symbols are ideal for ROM memory optimization of simple RGB symbols.

They also speed up drawing on display controllers that provide palette hardware support.

Support for animation of symbols

View animation of symbols directly in IconEdit with the symbol animation tool.

Wait circle animated by the IconEdit animation tool

This wait circle is based om 12 grey anti-alias symbols with 4 bit per pixel in a symbol group, drawn and animated with IconEdit for use in an embedded system.



IconEdit font and symbol editor home IconEdit font and symbol editor home

Download the zip file for IconEdit Go to download of the IconEdit zip file.