ASCII Art Generator: Text and Image to ASCII

Two generators in one

Text to ASCII draws your words as large letters built from characters. It uses FIGlet fonts, a format created in 1991 that is still the standard for terminal banners.

Image to ASCII rebuilds a photo or logo out of characters. Dark areas get dense characters such as @ and #. Light areas get sparse ones such as . and spaces.

How to make text banners

Select Text to ASCII.
Type a word or short phrase. Short text works best, because banners get wide quickly.
Choose a font. Standard and Slant are compact. Banner, Block and Colossal are large and bold.
Press Copy or Download.

On a phone the preview may scroll sideways. The copied text is still complete.

How to convert an image

Select Image to ASCII and choose a picture.
Adjust the width. About 80 to 120 characters suits most uses.
Turn on Invert if you will show the art as light text on a dark background, such as a terminal.

Pictures with a clear subject and strong contrast give the best results. A face against a plain wall works well. A busy landscape turns into noise. Logos and simple icons convert very cleanly.

Where ASCII art is used

README files and code comments, to mark sections or show a project logo
Terminal welcome messages and command line tool banners
Discord and forums, inside code blocks
Email signatures in plain text email
Retro designs for posters, shirts and websites

Getting it to display properly

ASCII art only lines up in a monospace font, where an i is as wide as a W. If your result looks scrambled after pasting:

In Discord, Slack and Reddit, wrap it in a code block using three backticks before and after.
In Word or Google Docs, set the font to Courier New or Consolas, then reduce the font size until no line wraps.
In HTML, put it inside a <pre> tag.
In code, paste it into a comment block. Watch for backslashes, which may need escaping inside strings.

Also check that the app has not replaced straight quotes or double hyphens with typographic versions. That feature changes characters and shifts the lines.

A short history

People were making pictures from characters on typewriters long before computers. ASCII art as we know it spread in the 1970s and 1980s, when printers and screens could show only text. Bulletin board systems used it for menus and logos, and email signatures carried it through the 1990s. It has stayed popular because it works anywhere text works, with no image files needed.

ASCII Art Generator: questions and answers

What is ASCII art?

ASCII art is a picture or lettering built from ordinary keyboard characters such as letters, slashes, dashes and symbols. It takes its name from ASCII, the basic character set that every computer supports.

How do I turn text into ASCII art?

Choose Text to ASCII, type your word or phrase and pick a font from the list. The banner appears below. Press Copy to put it on your clipboard or Download to save it as a text file.

How do I convert an image to ASCII?

Choose Image to ASCII and select a picture from your device. Use the width slider to set how many characters wide the result is. A larger width shows more detail. The image is processed on your device and is not uploaded.

Why does my ASCII art look broken when I paste it?

ASCII art needs a monospace font, where every character has the same width. Most chat apps and word processors use fonts with varying widths, which pushes the lines out of alignment. Paste it into a code block or switch the font to Courier New or Consolas.

How do I post ASCII art on Discord?

Put three backticks on the line before the art and three backticks on the line after it. Discord then shows it as a code block in a monospace font, which keeps the columns lined up.