Thread: Quick Favicon Creation

I think that this is possibly the fastest way to create an original favicon:

Grab a screen shot of your home page.

Select a square-shaped area of the page around your logo e.g. hold down the shift button in your paint software as you select an area (I like Paint.net). Then move the selection frame to precisely encapsulate the area that you want to use for the favicon image.

Re-size this to 16 pixels square with best quality re-sampling.

Save it as favicon.ico in a PNG format with 24 bit color depth.

Upload to the root of your site.

Now you have a favicon at: yoursite.com/favicon.ico

And the meta tag for it is:

Code:

<link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://yoursite.com/favicon.ico" />

I can do this in just a few minutes.

p.s. I think your browser cache can delay the favicon showing up in your browser tool bar, but navigating to the direct link can confirm that it is indeed present.

Also, I think it's a small SEO enhancement that you can make to your sites that don't have a favicon.

If you are really lazy, grab an icon, upload it to chami.com and download a favicon version of it

ICO is actually a special image file format and file should be saved in that format. Starting with a GIF or PNG file and renaming it as some sites recommend has not always worked with all browsers.

It is better if you use image editing software that works with the ICO format and convert the file. Both Gimp and Irfanview can save an image in the correct format. It looks like Paint.net is Gimp, so that makes sense. Paint Shop Pro and many other image editors cannot work with ICO files.