What is the UFO file format?
.ufo is the native layered image format of Ulead PhotoImpact, a Windows raster image editor developed by Ulead Systems and popular throughout the late 1990s and 2000s.
Internally, a .ufo file uses the OLE2/CFBF (Microsoft Compound File Binary Format) container - the same binary wrapper as older .doc and .xls files - with multiple embedded streams holding the base image, individual layers, selection masks, color palette, and metadata. This architecture allows PhotoImpact to preserve multiple independent editing layers in a single file, similar in concept to PSD files for Adobe Photoshop.
Color depth ranges from 1-bit monochrome to 32-bit RGBA. There is no documented hard limit on image dimensions; practical limits are determined by available system RAM.
Ulead Systems was acquired by Corel Corporation in 2006. Corel released one final version, PhotoImpact X3, in 2008, then discontinued the product. No version of Corel PaintShop Pro can natively open .ufo files despite Corel owning both products.
- No major third-party image editor supports the
.ufoformat natively. - OLE2 analysis tools such as
oletoolscan enumerate the file's internal streams but cannot render the image data. - Users needing to recover
.ufocontent are generally limited to running Ulead PhotoImpact X3 on a Windows system.
Note: the .ufo extension is also used by the Unified Font Object format - an entirely separate, open-source font source format with no connection to PhotoImpact.
Security & safety
RISK: LOWBinary image files; not an executable format. OLE2 container could theoretically embed macros but PhotoImpact UFO files do not use the macro/script functionality of OLE2.
Format details
in a nutshell- Unified Font Object (UFO) - Open source font source format used by RoboFont, FontForge, Glyphs, and font toolchains; a directory package (or ZIP) with .glif XML glyph files - unrelated to Ulead.
Programs that open UFO files
Windows2 apps
Ulead PhotoImpact X3
Paid File → Open → select the .ufo file. Note: PhotoImpact X3 is discontinued; may still be purchasable from Corel or found in digital archives. Technical details
deep spec| Format type | Proprietary binary layered raster image |
| MIME type | application/octet-stream (image/x-ufo used informally) |
| Encoding | Binary |
| Byte order | Little-endian (OLE2 standard) |
| Container | OLE2 / CFBF (Microsoft Compound File Binary Format) - same wrapper as legacy .doc and .xls files |
| Magic bytes | D0 CF 11 E0 A1 B1 1A E1 at offset 0 (OLE2 signature shared with other compound document types) |
| Compression | None or proprietary per-layer compression (implementation-defined) |
| Typical file size | 500 KB - 50 MB (varies with layer count and resolution) |
| Color depth | 1 to 32 bpp (supports 8-bit indexed, 24-bit RGB, and 32-bit RGBA) |
| Layer support | Multiple independent editing layers stored as separate OLE2 streams |
| Developer | Ulead Systems (acquired by Corel Corporation in 2006; product discontinued after PhotoImpact X3, 2008) |
| Third-party application support | None - no third-party image editor opens .ufo files natively; Corel PaintShop Pro cannot open them despite shared ownership |
| Structural inspection | OLE2 analysis tools (e.g. oletools) can enumerate internal streams but cannot render image content |
| Released | 1994 (Ulead PhotoImpact 1.0) |
| Latest version | PhotoImpact X3 (2008) - last version |
UFO conversions
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