.woff2 — Web Open Font Format 2
Font font/woff2
What a .woff2 file is
The web font format, wrapping TrueType or OpenType outlines in Brotli compression. Roughly 30% smaller than WOFF.
How to open it
Loaded by browsers through CSS @font-face; not a desktop-installable font.
Worth knowing
This is the only web font format worth shipping today. Serving TTF to browsers wastes bandwidth on every page load.
How to identify a .woff2 file
A file's extension is only its name — renaming a.png to a.woff2 changes nothing inside. What software actually reads is the magic number, the first few bytes of the file.
| Signature | 77 4F 46 32 |
| MIME type | font/woff2 |
| Category | Font |
ASCII "wOF2".
# what is this file really?
file mystery.woff2
# look at the first bytes yourself
xxd mystery.woff2 | head -2
head -c 16 mystery.woff2 | xxd
# Windows PowerShell
Get-Content mystery.woff2 -AsByteStream -TotalCount 16 | Format-HexFrequently asked questions
What is a .woff2 file?
The web font format, wrapping TrueType or OpenType outlines in Brotli compression. Roughly 30% smaller than WOFF.
How do I open a .woff2 file?
Loaded by browsers through CSS @font-face; not a desktop-installable font.
Is .woff2 safe to open?
Yes. A .woff2 file is data, not code — opening one cannot execute anything by itself.
Can I change a file's extension to convert it?
No. Renaming changes the label, not the bytes. The one place it appears to work is between formats that genuinely share a container — renaming .docx to .zip works because a DOCX is a ZIP. Everything else needs a real converter.