What is an ICO file? Why do you need to convert image to icon? How to convert to ICO? This post from MiniTool PDF Editor shows you all. You can choose one way according to your need.
Introduction to ICO File
The ICO file format is an image file format for computer icons in Microsoft Windows. ICO files contain one or more small images at multiple sizes and color depths, such that they may be scaled appropriately.
In general, websites and apps will use ICO files. For example, when you search for something in browsers, in the result lists, website icons will be displayed before all these websites. In addition, all Windows executables that display an icon to the user, on the desktop, in the Start Menu, or in Windows Explorer, must carry the icon in ICO format.
The images in an ICO file usually adopt the following size:
- 8×8, 10×10, and 20×20 icons are mostly used for toolbar buttons.
- 16X16 icons are mostly displayed in the address bar, toolbar, and the upper left corner of the application.
- 32×32 icons are displayed on the taskbar at the bottom of the computer.
- 48X48 icons are the shortcut icons on the desktop.
- 256×256 icons are mostly seen in the Windows operating system of Windows Vista and above.
- Of course, 24×24, 64×64, and 128×128 icons are also very common.
The ICO format usually supports the following color scales: monochrome, 16-color, 256-color, true color, and Windows XP color. The image size and color scale can be freely combined to become a different ICO file format.
Why Do You Need to Convert Image to Icon
Why do you need to convert PNG to ICO, convert JPG to ICO, or convert other image file formats to ICO? Here are 2 main reasons.
Reason 1: ICO’s wide compatibility with most browsers.
As mentioned above, websites will use ICO files. These icons will be displayed in front of browser favorites, website pages, etc. To make the browser display these icons, website owners will put a favicon file in the root directory of the website server. Then, the browser will use it after discovering it.
The favicon file could be .ico, .png, .jpg, or even .gif, but the .ico format is supported by all browsers. Therefore, most website owners may want to convert to ICO directly.
Reason 2. You want to customize Windows icons.
Windows allows you to change the default Desktop icons, the app shortcuts, the app icons pinned to Taskbar, and the folder icons. As for the detailed steps, you can refer to this post: Changing Default Desktop, Taskbar, Folder Icons in Windows 10.
When you change the default icons, you can click the Browse button. Then, you can select a custom icon. However, the file format of the icon should be ICO, ICL, EXE, or DLL. Therefore, many people will convert PNG to ICO or convert JPG to ICO.
How to Convert Image to Icon
To convert image to icon, you need an ICO converter. Then, you can try the following ones.
#1. Convert to ICO from PNG, JPG, and GIF
MiniTool PDF Editor is a PDF editing tool. You can use it to annotate PDFs, split/merge PDFs, password protect PDFs, compress PDFs, and convert files to PDFs or reverse, and you can also use it to convert to ICO.
This ICO converter can convert HEIC, BMP, WBMP, JPG, JP2, JPEG, JPC, PNG, TIF, TIFF, and GIF images to ICO files. Here is the guide:
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Step 1: Launch MiniTool PDF Editor and click Create > Blank. The convert feature is only available after you open a PDF file. Therefore, you need to create a blank PDF file first.
Step 2: Go to Convert > Image Converter. This will open a new window.
Step 3: On the new window, click Image to ICO. Then, click Add Files to select an image file. You can use this way to add multiple image files. Then, expand the ICO Size menu to select the size you want. After that, click Start.
#2. Convert to ICO from SVG
Some people may want to know how to convert to ICO form SVG. GIMP, a free image editor, can help you. It can even edit the SVG image prior to the SVG to ICO conversion.
To convert SVG to ICO, you just need to open an SVG image in this software, click File > Export, and then select output filetype as Microsoft Windows Ico (ICO) to start the conversion.
In addition to the above icon converters, you can also use online services to convert to ICO. You can choose one way according to your need.
Bottom Line
Do you know other ways to convert to ICO? Share them with us in the following comment zone. In addition, if you have encountered problems when using MiniTool PDF Editor, feel free to contact us via [email protected]. We will get back to you as soon as possible.
About The Author
Position: Columnist
Linda has been working as an editor at MiniTool for 5 years. She is always curious about computer knowledge and learns it crazily. Her articles are simple and easy to understand. Even people who do not understand computer can gain something. By the way, her special focuses are disk management, data recovery and PDF editing.