ASCII Art Text Generator (Text Banner)
Type some text and it is drawn as large lettering made of plain characters, in the FIGlet banner style. Handy for README headings, source-file headers and terminal splash messages. To turn a picture into ASCII art instead, use the Image to ASCII Art Converter.
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Notes
- Only the "Dot (Japanese)" font supports Japanese (hiragana, katakana and kanji). The other fonts cover ASCII letters, digits and symbols only; Japanese, full-width characters and emoji are left out.
- Block covers letters, digits and a few symbols (! ? . , : - _ + = / ( ) ' * #); lowercase letters use the same shapes as uppercase.
- The result is meant for a monospaced font. In proportional fonts (email bodies, chat apps) the shapes may fall apart.
- A comment style adds // or # to each line, or wraps the art in /* */ or <!-- -->. If the art contains */ or -->, a space is inserted so it cannot close the comment early.
- Standard, Small, Slant, Big and Mini are fonts bundled with FIGlet (by Glenn Chappell, Ian Chai and others) and Doom is by Frans P. de Vries. They are included under their distribution terms with the original comments kept. Block is our own design.
- "Dot (Japanese)" is based on the 8×8-dot Japanese font "Misaki Font" by Num Kadoma. It covers JIS level 1 and 2 kanji, but complex kanji are hard to read at such a small size, and characters outside those levels (such as 𠮟 and 﨑) cannot be drawn. The kanji data (about 45KB) is loaded only when you first enter a kanji.
Glossary
FIGlet
A program, around since 1991, that draws text as large lettering made of ordinary characters (a text banner). Fonts are distributed as .flf files, and many have been made by people around the world.
Smushing
Overlapping the edges of neighbouring letters to tighten the spacing. In "Smushed" mode, characters that land on the same cell, such as / and \, are merged into one according to each font's rules. Some fonts become hard to read when smushed.
FAQ
Can I turn Japanese text (hiragana, katakana, kanji) into ASCII art?
Yes, with the "Dot (Japanese, Misaki font)" font, which covers hiragana, katakana and kanji (JIS level 1 and 2). The other fonts only contain ASCII letters, digits and symbols, so Japanese, full-width characters and emoji are left out and the tool lists which characters were skipped. Even the dot font cannot draw emoji or characters outside JIS level 2, such as 𠮟 and 﨑.
Why does the banner look broken after I paste it?
ASCII lettering assumes a monospaced font. In proportional fonts, such as email bodies, chat apps and social media posts, the characters have different widths and the shapes fall apart. Paste it into a code editor, a terminal, or a README code block.
What do the letter-spacing options do?
"Font default" uses the spacing the font author intended. "Full width" leaves a gap between letters, and "Fitted" moves each letter until it touches its neighbour. "Smushed" goes one step further and merges overlapping edge characters into one, giving the narrowest result, though some fonts become hard to read.
How do I put the banner at the top of a source file?
Pick the comment style that fits your language before copying. Use "// line comment" or "/* */" for JavaScript, Java and C-family languages, "# line comment" for Python, shell scripts and YAML, and "<!-- -->" for HTML.
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