[AD] How to export to ICO format?

[ambiroa]

I like to use AD to design icons, which uses the .ico format. Is there a way to directly export my design to this format, or would I need an external program to convert a PNG into ICO? If it's the latter, any recommendations on tools?

[VIPStephan]

First of all, I read somewhere (unfortunately, however, I don’t remember where anymore) that ICO is kind of a “deprecated” format, i. e. it’s old an not required anymore unless you want to support really old browsers. Secondly, Affinity Designer can’t export ICO images and I think it won’t be implemented anyway, for the aforementioned reason. Thirdly, you can use one of the many favicon generators on the internet, the more modern ones like http://www.favicomatic.com/ or https://realfavicongenerator.net/ will even create multiple size versions for multiple browsers/operating systems.

[ambiroa]

First of all, I read somewhere (unfortunately, however, I don’t remember where anymore) that ICO is kind of a “deprecated” format, i. e. it’s old an not required anymore unless you want to support really old browsers. Secondly, Affinity Designer can’t export ICO images and I think it won’t be implemented anyway, for the aforementioned reason. Thirdly, you can use one of the many favicon generators on the internet, the more modern ones like http://www.favicomatic.com/ or https://realfavicongenerator.net/ will even create multiple size versions for multiple browsers/operating systems.

 

Oh, but then my question would, what will the future format be for desktop app icons? Because for some weird reason, it can't be a png or jpg.

[frinsen]

See also here: 

Still not added as a feature

[Komatös]

@frinsen 

This thread is already so old that your post is tantamount to an exhumation. 😉

Why should companies like Serif, Corel or Adobe continue to support sham dead file formats?
You can't carry around legacy files for decades.

Those who always look backwards will never see what lies ahead.

[R C-R]

4 hours ago, N.P.M. said:

But other options remain like exporting as png or gif and convert with xnviewmp or some other conversiontool.

At least in my Mac, I do not find any option in XnViewMP to export a file to the ico format. Is this something maybe only the Windows version supports, or am I just not seeing where that option is?

[v_kyr]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

At least in my Mac, I do not find any option in XnViewMP to export a file to the ico format. Is this something maybe only the Windows version supports, or am I just not seeing where that option is?

You can answer that yourself, just see (read and/or write then too there)...

Quote

XnView MP supports more than 500 image formats (including Multipage and animated still formats APNG, TIFF, GIF, ICO, etc..) and export to about 70 different file formats.

• https://www.xnview.com/en/image_formats/

 

BTW, on a Win system I would always use IrfanView and it's additional/optional file format plugins for such read/write initially MS based (nowadays outdated) ICO files.

[Komatös]

@R C-R

You'll find this functon under Create -> Multi-Frame File

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, v_kyr said:

You can answer that yourself, just see (read and/or write then too there)...

That tells me ico is supported but not how to write a file to it. 

51 minutes ago, N.P.M. said:

Right click>Batch convert

I see now that ico is in the Output tab popup list for batch conversions, but like the Create -> Multi-Frame File item, it was not obvious to me that is where the export to ico item would be found, so thanks to you & @Komatös for helping me find it!

[Komatös]

@R C-R

You are welcome!

[v_kyr]

12 hours ago, R C-R said:

That tells me ico is supported but not how to write a file to it. 

RTFM ...

• How to batch convert and batch process with XnView MP
• XnViewMP for Beginners
• XNView Classic
• ...

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, v_kyr said:

RTFM ...

• How to batch convert and batch process with XnView MP
• XnViewMP for Beginners
• XNView Classic
•  

The problem for me for each of those references is if I open them & do a browser search on "ICO" I get zero hits related to the ico format. I guess part of it was I was expecting something more straightforward, like if I opened a file in the app & selected File > Export I would see an ICO or Windows Icon option, or some obvious way to get to that.

[v_kyr]

2 minutes ago, R C-R said:

The problem for me for each of those references is if I open them & do a browser search on "ICO" I get zero hits related to the ico format. I guess part of it was I was expecting something more straightforward, like if I opened a file in the app & selected File > Export I would see an ICO or Windows Icon option, or some obvious way to get to that.

I know you never looked before after that and also that you did expect too much from some docs like those, where some things are obvious to discover yourself are usually through a little own initiative of course then!

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, v_kyr said:

I know you never looked before after that and also that you did expect too much from some docs like those, where some things are obvious to discover yourself are usually through a little own initiative of course then!

Are you referring to the format item in the 'how to batch convert...' link or something else? It was not (& still is not) obvious to me that exporting to the ico format should somehow be related directly to batch converting anything. I guess part of that is because to me 'batch' implies something that operates on multiple items, yet it is possible to use this option with just a single file open in the app.

So for me it would take more than a little initiative to wade through all the documentation to find that batch > output > format item, which is why I asked about it here & am thankful that 2 people responded with the answer I was looking for.

[v_kyr]

2 hours ago, R C-R said:

So for me it would take more than a little initiative to wade through all the documentation to find that batch > output > format item

Well depends on how one is used to read through docs at all. Though those available docs for XNview MP are mostly pretty old and thus one has to try things either way out.

[R C-R]

7 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

Well depends on how one is used to read through docs at all.

It also depends on how much documentation there is to read through, how well it is organized, & if it is easily searchable, among other things.

As for trying things out, that is hard to do if you do not know where to start or what to look for.

Obviously, this also applies to apps like the Affinity ones.