Pico

A PNG to ICO packer written in Rust.
Copyright © 2023-2024 Chris Roberts (Krobbizoid).

Contents

1. Usage
   • Arguments
   • Options
   • Examples
2. Dependencies
3. License

Usage

Pico aims to convert PNG images to ICO icons by packing the PNG data directly into the output file. This feature has been supported since Windows Vista and typically results in smaller ICO files.

Build Pico with cargo build --release and move the executable from target/release/pico(.exe) to a directory with environment access. After this you can use Pico from the command line:

pico [OPTIONS] <input>...

Arguments

Argument	Usage
<input>...	One or more PNG input files or directories

Pico must be given one or more unnamed arguments representing paths to PNG input. The order of the arguments matches the order of the data in the ICO output file.

If a directory path is given, it will be expanded to every file in that directory with a .png file extension (case-insensitive). The order of the files is system-dependent. Subdirectories will not be searched.

Options

Short	Long	Arguments	Usage
-o	--output	<path>	ICO output file
-s	--sort	(None)	Sort ICO entries by resolution
-f	--force	(None)	Overwrite existing ICO output file
-h	--help	(None)	Print help
-V	--version	(None)	Print version

If the --output option is not set, the path to the ICO output file will be the same as the first input path, but with a .ico file extension.

If the --sort flag is set, Pico will sort entries in the ICO output file by resolution from largest to smallest.

Pico will fail if a file already exists at the output path, unless the --force flag is set.

If the --help or --version flags are set, Pico will print information but not perform any action.

Examples

Pack icon.png into icon.ico:

pico icon.png

Pack all PNG images in icons/ into icons.ico:

pico icons/

Pack input.png into output.ico:

pico input.png -o output.ico

Pack foo.png and bar.png into foo.ico:

pico foo.png bar.png

Pack icon_64x.png and icon_32x.png into icon.ico, overwriting an existing file:

pico icon_64x.png icon_32x.png -o icon.ico -f

Pack icon_32x.png and all PNG images in icons/ into icon.ico, sorting icon entries by descending resolution, and overwriting an existing file:

pico icon_32x.png icons/ -s -o icon.ico -f

Dependencies

Pico uses the following libraries:

• clap - Command line argument parsing.
• png - PNG parsing and validation.

License

Pico is released under the MIT License:
https://krobbi.github.io/license/2023/2024/mit.txt

See LICENSE.txt for a full copy of the license text.