Turn text into ASCII art with 200+ FIGlet fonts, or convert an image to ASCII with color, dithering and adjustable width. Free and 100% in your browser.
This ASCII art generator does the two jobs people usually need separately. Type a word and it becomes a banner in any of more than 200 FIGlet fonts. Upload a picture and it becomes ASCII art, with control over width, character set, contrast, dithering, and colour. Two more tabs cover generated geometric shapes and a browsable library of ready-made art. Everything renders in your browser — no upload, no account, no watermark — and the output copies straight to the clipboard or downloads as a text file.
ASCII art earns its keep in places where images cannot go: terminal splash screens, README headers on GitHub, code comments and file banners, MOTD login messages, Discord and Twitch chat, IRC, commit messages, and CLI tool startup output. Plain text survives every one of those contexts unchanged.
The text tab converts a word or phrase into a large lettered banner. Two font sources are available.
FIGlet fonts are the classic ASCII banner format, and over 200 of them ship here, grouped into five browsable categories with a search box for finding one by name:
Built-in fonts are a smaller set — Standard, Banner, Block, Digital, and Mini — that render instantly and support two extras FIGlet does not: a vertical layout that stacks letters down the page instead of across, and a custom fill character so you can draw the letterforms out of any symbol you like rather than the font’s default.
A note on width: FIGlet letters are typically six to ten characters wide, so an eight-character word in a large font can exceed 80 columns. If your target is a terminal or a README code block, either keep the text short or choose a font from the Small, Mini, or Thin families.
The image tab converts PNG, JPG, GIF, WebP, and SVG files into ASCII. The conversion samples the image on a grid, measures the brightness of each cell, and picks the character whose visual density best matches — dense glyphs for dark areas, sparse ones for light. Because monospace characters are roughly twice as tall as they are wide, the vertical sampling is compressed to compensate; without that correction every conversion comes out stretched.
The controls that matter, and what each is for:
█ ▓ ▒ ░ for solid coverage; numbers and binary render the image out of digits; braille dots exploits Unicode braille for a much finer effective resolution; custom lets you supply your own characters ordered dark to light.cat straight into a terminal that supports 24-bit colour.Portraits and logos convert far better than busy scenes. Strong contrast, a clear subject, and a simple background are worth more than any setting. If your source image is in an awkward format, run it through the image format converter first.
The shapes tab generates geometry procedurally rather than from an image: heart, star, diamond, triangle, circle, box, arrow, tree, and wave. Size and fill character are adjustable for all of them; boxes add a width, a height, and a border style (simple, double, or rounded); arrows take a direction; waves take their own width and height. Box drawing in particular is the fast way to build a framed banner or a comment header for a source file.
The art library holds ready-made pieces organised into animals, faces, symbols, objects, borders, and decorative sets — the small classics like /\_/\ cats and shrug faces that are quicker to pick than to build. Select one and it lands in the output box like any other result.
.txt file, download the coloured version as HTML, or copy the ANSI string for terminal use.Text output only survives if it lands somewhere that preserves whitespace and uses a monospace font. In Markdown — README files, GitHub issues, most documentation systems — that means wrapping the art in a fenced code block. On Discord, use a triple-backtick block; single backticks collapse multi-line art. In source code, use a block comment. For a terminal MOTD or a shell script banner, remember that a backslash-heavy font needs escaping inside a double-quoted heredoc, so prefer a quoted heredoc or an external file.
Character-set choice interacts with all of this. The block and braille sets rely on Unicode, which is fine in a modern terminal or browser but can render as boxes in a legacy console or a system with limited font coverage. If the destination is uncertain, the plain and detailed ASCII ramps stay within the printable 7-bit range and travel anywhere. For other text-shaped generators, see the rest of our developer tools, including the matrix rain generator and the lorem ipsum generator.
Open the image tab, upload a PNG, JPG, GIF, WebP, or SVG, and set the output width. The tool samples the image, maps each cell’s brightness to a character, and shows the result immediately. Increase contrast and try Floyd-Steinberg dithering if the output looks flat.
Over 200 FIGlet fonts, sorted into Classic, 3D & Effect, Decorative, Gothic & Fantasy, and Modern categories with a search box, plus five fast built-in fonts that also support vertical layout and a custom fill character.
No. Images are read and processed entirely in your browser using a canvas, and text generation runs locally too. Nothing is transmitted, stored, or logged.
Almost always a font problem at the destination rather than a conversion problem. ASCII art assumes every character occupies an identical cell, so it only holds its proportions in a monospace font. Paste it into a code block, a terminal, or a <pre> element rather than into proportional body text.
80 columns for terminals and MOTD banners, 100–150 for a web page or a wide code block, and less for chat clients that wrap aggressively. Wider always means more detail, but wrapped ASCII art is destroyed rather than merely truncated, so match the destination.
Yes, from an image conversion. Enable colour output and you get a coloured HTML version you can download and embed, plus a truecolor ANSI string for terminals that support 24-bit colour. The plain-text output remains available alongside.
They trade tonal range against legibility. The detailed ramp uses many characters for smooth shading, simple uses few for a graphic look, blocks use solid Unicode shading glyphs, braille packs multiple dots into each cell for the finest detail, and numbers or binary render the image out of digits for effect. A custom set lets you supply your own characters ordered from dark to light.
Yes — free, unlimited, and no signup. Output is plain text you own and can use anywhere, including commercially.
This versatile ASCII art generator offers four distinct modes to create text-based art:
Convert any text into large ASCII banners using 5 different font styles. Perfect for creating headers in code comments, README files, or terminal splash screens. Choose from Standard (classic FIGlet), Banner (tall block letters), Block (simple @ patterns), Digital (LCD-style), or Mini (compact) fonts.
Upload any image and convert it to ASCII art. The converter analyzes brightness values and maps them to characters—darker areas become dense characters like @ and #, while lighter areas use dots and spaces. Adjust width, character density, and invert colors for optimal results.
Create geometric ASCII shapes including hearts, stars, diamonds, triangles, circles, boxes, arrows, trees, and waves. Customize size, fill character, and special options like box border style or arrow direction.
Browse 60+ pre-made ASCII art pieces across 6 categories: animals, faces & emotions, symbols, objects, borders & frames, and decorative elements. One-click copy makes it easy to use these classic designs in your projects.
ASCII art transforms plain text characters into visual images and designs. This technique dates back to the 1960s when early computer systems lacked graphical capabilities, forcing creative users to represent images using only the 95 printable ASCII characters.
ASCII art remains relevant in modern development and design. Here are practical applications.
Make your GitHub projects stand out:
___ ___ ___ _____ ___ ___ ___
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My Awesome Project v2.0
Greet users when they SSH into servers or open terminal applications.
Mark important sections in your codebase:
/*
* ╔═══════════════════════════════════════╗
* ║ AUTHENTICATION MIDDLEWARE ║
* ║ DO NOT MODIFY WITHOUT REVIEW ║
* ╚═══════════════════════════════════════╝
*/
Add personality to plain-text communications where images aren't supported.
Create nostalgic visual effects for games, demos, or artistic projects.
Create text-based badges for CLI tools and terminal dashboards that work everywhere.
The generator includes 200+ FIGlet fonts organized into five style categories. Each font renders text in a distinct visual style, from classic banner-style block letters to elaborate 3D, decorative, and gothic typefaces.
Standard, Banner, Big, Block, Bubble, Digital, Ivrit, Lean, Mini, Script, Shadow, Slant, Small, Speed, Star Wars.
3-D, 3D Diagonal, 3D-ASCII, Isometric1, Isometric2, Isometric3, Isometric4.
Alligator, Alligator2, Alpha, Alphabet, Avatar, Banner3-D, Banner4, Basic, Bear, Bell, Benjamin, Bigfig, Binary, Bloody, Bolger, Bright, Broadway, Broadway KB, Bulbhead, Caligraphy, Caligraphy2, Calvins, Catwalk, Chiseled, Chunky, Coinstak, Colossal, Computer, Contessa, Contrast, Cosmike, Crawford, Crawford2, Crazy, Cricket, Cursive, Cyberlarge, Cybermedium, Cybersmall.
Dancing Font, Decimal, Def Leppard, Delta Corps Priest 1, Diamond, Diet Cola, Doom, Dot Matrix, Double, Double Shorts, Dr Pepper, Efti Chess, Efti Font, Efti Italic, Efti Piti, Efti Robot, Efti Wall, Efti Water, Electronic, Elite, Epic, Fender, Filter, Fire Font-k, Fire Font-s, Flipped, Flower Power, Four Tops, Fraktur, Fun Face, Fun Faces, Fuzzy.
Georgi16, Georgia11, Ghost, Ghoulish, Glenyn, Goofy, Gothic, Graceful, Gradient, Graffiti, Greek, Heart Left, Heart Right, Henry 3D, Hex, Hieroglyphs, Hollywood, Horizontal Left, Horizontal Right, ICL-1900, Impossible, Invita, Jacky, Jazmine, Jerusalem, JS Block Letters, JS Bracket Letters, JS Capital Curves, JS Cursive, JS Stick Letters, Katakana, Kban, Keyboard, Knob, Konto, Konto Slant, Larry 3D, Larry 3D 2, LCD, Lean, Letters, Line Blocks, Linux, Lockergnome, Madrid, Marquee, Maxfour, Merlin1, Merlin2, Mike, Mirror, Mnemonic, Modular, Morse, Morse2, Moscow, Mshebrew210, Muzzle, Nancyj, Nancyj-Fancy, Nancyj-Improved, Nancyj-Underlined, Nipples, NScript, NT Greek, NV Script, O8, Octal, Ogre, Old Banner, OS2, Patorjk's Cheese, Patorjk-HeX, Pawp, Peaks, Peaks Slant, Pebbles, Pepper, Poison, Puffy, Puzzle, Pyramid, Rammstein, Rectangles, Red Phoenix, Relief, Relief2, Reverse, Roman, Rot13, Rotated, Rounded, Rowan Cap, Rozzo, Runic, Runyc, S Blood, Santa Clara, Script, Serifcap, Short, SL Script, Slant Relief, Slide, Small, Small Caps, Small Isometric1, Small Keyboard, Small Poison, Small Script, Small Shadow, Small Slant, Small Tengwar, Soft, Speed, Spliff, Stacey, Stampate, Stampatello, Standard, Star Strips, Star Wars, Stellar, Stforek, Stick Letters, Stop, Straight, Stronger Than All, Sub-Zero, Swamp Land, Swan, Sweet, Tanja, Tengwar, Term, Test1, The Edge, Thick, Thin, THIS, Thorned, Three Point, Ticks, Ticks Slant, Tiles, Tinker-Toy, Tombstone, Train, Trek, Tsalagi, Tubular, Twisted, Two Point, Univers, USA Flag, Varsity, Wavy, Weird, Wet Letter, Whimsy, Wow.
In addition to FIGlet, the generator includes 5 hand-crafted custom fonts (Standard, Banner, Block, Digital, Mini) optimized for short headers, plus an image-to-ASCII converter with edge detection and dithering, a shape generator, and a library of 60+ pre-made ASCII art designs.
Converting an image to ASCII art (sometimes called an ASCII image generator or image-to-ASCII converter) replaces blocks of pixels with text characters chosen by brightness. This tool does it entirely in your browser — your image is never uploaded.
@%#*+=-:.) gives smooth gradients; Blocks (█▓▒░) looks dense and poster-like; Simple, Numbers, Binary, and Braille offer alternative textures. You can also supply a custom ramp, ordered dark→light.Use the Terminal, Banner, or Logo presets in the output panel to restyle the result and set the PNG export theme — green-on-black for terminal art, large light-on-dark for banners, or a compact dark-on-light card for READMEs and docs.
Copy the result, or download it as .txt, .png, color HTML, or terminal ANSI. For text-mode art, the page also writes your text, font, and preset into a shareable permalink URL that reproduces the same output when opened.
ASCII art is a graphic design technique that creates images using printable characters from the ASCII standard (letters, numbers, and symbols). It originated in the early days of computing when graphics capabilities were limited, and remains popular for code comments, terminal displays, email signatures, and social media posts.
Open the Image to ASCII tab, then drag-and-drop, browse, or paste (Ctrl+V) any image — JPG, PNG, GIF, WebP, or SVG. The tool reads each region's pixel brightness and maps it to a character: dense characters like @ and # for dark areas, light characters or spaces for bright areas. You can set the output width (30–200 characters), pick a character ramp (detailed, simple, block, numbers, binary, Braille, or your own), invert light/dark, tune brightness and contrast, apply Floyd-Steinberg or ordered dithering, and turn on edge detection. Enable Color output to keep each character's original color and export it as HTML or terminal-ready ANSI. Everything runs in your browser — your image is never uploaded.
The ASCII Art Generator supports 200+ FIGlet fonts in addition to 5 built-in custom fonts. FIGlet fonts span 5 categories: Classic (Standard, Banner, Big, Block, Slant, Star Wars), 3D & Effect (3-D, 3D Diagonal, Isometric variants), Decorative (Alligator, Bloody, Broadway, Colossal), Gothic & Fantasy (Doom, Dr Pepper, Electronic, Epic), and Modern (Ghost, Graffiti, Larry 3D, Roman). See the Supported FIGlet Fonts section below for the full catalog.
Yes! The Shapes tab lets you generate 9 different shapes: heart, star, diamond, triangle, circle, box, arrow, tree, and wave. You can customize the size (3-15), fill character, box style (simple, double, or rounded borders), and arrow direction (up, down, left, right).
The Art Library contains 60+ ready-to-use ASCII art pieces across 6 categories: Animals (cat, dog, owl, fish, whale), Faces & Emotions (happy, sad, shrug, table flip), Symbols (heart, star, music note, skull), Objects (computer, coffee, rocket, camera), Borders & Frames (simple, double, speech bubble), and Decorative (dividers, arrows, tree, snowflake).
Use "Copy to Clipboard" to copy the plain ASCII, or download it as a .txt or .png file. For color image conversions you also get "Copy as ANSI (terminal)" — which embeds 24-bit truecolor escape codes so it renders in color when pasted into a terminal — and "Download as Color HTML" for a self-contained colored page. The output panel reports character count, line count, and width so you can fit the art into a README, comment, banner, or terminal prompt.
Yes. In the Image to ASCII tab, switch on "Color output". Each character then keeps the color of the pixels it represents. You can copy or download the result as standalone color HTML, or use "Copy as ANSI (terminal)" to get a truecolor version that displays in color in modern terminals (iTerm2, Windows Terminal, most Linux emulators). Color works alongside width, character-ramp, dithering, and invert controls.
The output panel has three presets. "Terminal" renders classic green-on-black monospace — ideal for shell prompts, MOTD screens, and terminal ASCII art. "Banner" shows large light-on-dark text for headers and splash screens. "Logo" uses a compact dark-on-light card that reads well in READMEs and docs. The preset also sets the theme used when you export a PNG. For text, pair a preset with the 200+ FIGlet fonts (Slant, Big, Block, Doom, Star Wars) to build a wordmark or banner.
No. All conversion — text-to-ASCII, image-to-ASCII, color sampling, dithering, and PNG rendering — happens entirely in your browser using the Canvas API. The page makes no network requests with your content, so nothing is uploaded. You can use it offline once the page has loaded. Note that shareable permalink URLs encode only text-mode settings (text, font, preset); image pixels are never placed in the URL.