ASCII Art Generator: Text to Big Banner Letters
Turn text into large ASCII-art letters in block, small or shadow banner fonts. Choose the drawing character, letter spacing and a maximum width that wraps words, then copy or download the art. Nothing is uploaded.
ASCII art
# # ##### # # ### # # # # # # # ##### #### # # # # # # # # # # # # # ##### ##### ##### ###
About the ASCII Art Generator
The ASCII Art Generator draws your text as large letters made of ordinary keyboard characters, the kind of banner used at the top of a README, in a terminal welcome message, in a code comment above a section, or in a plain-text email signature. Type a word or a short line and the art appears below as you type, ready to copy or save as a .txt file. The letters are drawn in your browser; your text is never uploaded.
How to use it
Steps
- Type the text to draw. Each line you type becomes its own block of art.
- Pick a font: Block, Small or Shadow.
- Choose the character to draw with. The default is
#, but@,*,Xor█work just as well. For the Shadow font you also choose the character the shadow is drawn with. - Set the letter spacing, the number of blank columns between letters.
- Set a maximum width so the art fits a terminal or a code comment. Words that do not fit move to a new block of rows; leave the field blank to keep each line whole.
- Press Copy ASCII art or Download .txt.
The fonts
Block
Five rows tall and up to five columns wide per letter, with every stroke a solid run of the drawing character. It is the easiest font to read from a distance and suits headings and banners.
Small
Only three rows tall, for places where space is tight, such as a comment above a function or a status line. Three rows cannot keep every letter distinct, so a few capitals borrow the shape of their small letter: B, D and Q look like b, d and q.
Shadow
The block letters with a drop shadow. Every filled cell casts a shadow one row down and one column to the right, onto empty cells only, which gives the letters depth. The art is one row taller and one column wider than the block version.
What the fonts cover
All three fonts have the letters A to Z, the digits 0 to 9 and common punctuation: . , ! ? : ; ' " - _ + = * / \ ( ) [ ] # @ & $ % < >. Small letters are drawn as capitals. Characters a font has no glyph for, such as accented letters or emoji, are left out and listed under the art so you know what is missing. To turn accented text into plain letters first, run it through the Unicode to ASCII step of a transliteration tool. For simple case changes before drawing, the Text Case Converter helps, and the Reverse Text tool flips a line if you need mirror-order text.
Tips
Monospaced fonts are essential: ASCII art only lines up when every character has the same width, so paste it into a code block, a terminal or a plain-text editor such as the Text Editor rather than a word processor. Trailing spaces are trimmed from each row, so the art pastes cleanly into source files that strip them.
Open-source credits
The rendering and all three fonts are implemented in-house on this site. The fonts are original bitmap designs drawn for this tool; no FIGlet font files are used. The idea of banner lettering follows the long tradition of the Unix banner program and FIGlet.
Frequently asked questions
Why does my ASCII art look crooked after pasting it?
ASCII art only lines up in a monospaced font, where every character takes the same width. Word processors, chat apps and many email clients use proportional fonts, so the columns drift. Paste it into a code block, a terminal or a plain-text editor and it will line up.
Are these FIGlet fonts?
No. The Block, Small and Shadow fonts were drawn from scratch for this site as small bitmap designs, with each letter stored as rows of filled and empty cells. That is why you can pick any character to draw with, which FIGlet's line-art fonts do not allow.
Why are accented letters and emoji missing from the art?
The fonts contain the English letters A to Z, the digits and common punctuation. Characters without a glyph are left out and listed under the art. Convert accented letters to their plain forms first, so that é becomes e, and they will be drawn.
How wide can the ASCII art be?
Set the maximum width to the number of columns you have, for example 80 for a classic terminal or 72 for a code comment. Words that do not fit move to a new block of rows, and a single word wider than the limit is split between letters. Leave the field blank to turn wrapping off.
Can I use the generated banners in my own projects?
Yes. The art you generate is yours to use in READMEs, source code, terminal messages or anything else, with no attribution needed. The output is plain text, so it works in any file and on any system that shows text in a monospaced font.