ASCII Art Generator
Turn any text into ASCII banner art
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23 characters wide
About ASCII Art Generator
Converts text into ASCII art — an image made entirely of text characters — for a retro-style banner or decorative text in a plain-text context like a code comment, terminal output, or README file, where an actual image file isn't an option.
Type your text (several lines make several banners), pick a font and alignment, and copy the result. The preview can be zoomed; a note tells you if the art is wider than 80 columns.
ASCII art displays correctly only in a monospaced font — if you paste it somewhere with a proportional font, the alignment will look broken even though the text itself is correct. Code editors, terminals, and plain-text files almost always use a monospaced font by default, which is why this works well for those specific contexts but not for a regular word processor or webpage without adjusting the font first.
Watch: ASCII Art Generator in Action
- Why does my ASCII art look broken when I paste it somewhere?
- ASCII art displays correctly only in a monospaced font. If you paste it somewhere with a proportional font, the alignment will look broken even though the text itself is correct — code editors, terminals, and plain-text files almost always use a monospaced font by default, which is why this works well there but not in a regular word processor.
- Why can't I type accents, Hindi or emoji?
- The banner fonts only contain plain ASCII characters, meaning English letters, digits and common punctuation. If any character falls outside that range the tool shows a message and draws nothing until you remove it.
- How do I stop the art wrapping in my README or terminal?
- Look at the width note under the preview. If it exceeds 80 columns, shorten the text, put each word on its own line, or choose a narrower font such as Small or Mini. Putting the art in a code block also stops the layout being reflowed.
- Does the zoom slider change what I copy?
- No. Preview zoom only changes the on-screen size of the preview, between 8 and 22 pixels of text size. The copied text is the same whatever the slider position.
- How are several lines handled?
- Each line is drawn as a separate banner and the banners are stacked with an empty line between them. Alignment then pads shorter banners on the left when Centre is selected, so they sit in the middle of the widest one.
- Which fonts are available, and are they all pure ASCII?
- There are twelve: Standard, Big, Slant, Small, Mini, Banner3, Block, ANSI Shadow, Doom, Graffiti, Ghost and Bubble. Most draw with ordinary keyboard symbols, but ANSI Shadow uses solid block and line-drawing characters, so it may not display in every plain-text setting.
How to use ASCII Art Generator
Type up to 60 characters into the Text box; it starts with Hello. Each line you enter becomes its own banner, with a blank line between them. Pick a style from the Font menu: Standard, Big, Slant, Small, Mini, Banner3, Block, ANSI Shadow, Doom, Graffiti, Ghost or Bubble. The Left and Centre buttons set how several banners of different widths line up; centring pads the shorter ones with spaces.
The art appears below in a box. The Preview zoom slider, which runs from 8 to 22, changes only how large it looks on screen. A note under it gives the width in characters and warns when it passes 80 columns. Press Copy ASCII Art to put the text on your clipboard.
When to use it
Good for giving a script, README, terminal welcome message or source-file header a title that stands out in plain text, or for decorating a text-only email signature or forum post that cannot show images. Trying several fonts on the same word shows quickly which suits a short project name, and narrow fonts like Mini and Small keep longer names within a screen.
When not to use it
Skip it when the destination uses a proportional font or reflows text, such as a word processor, chat app or social post, because the columns will misalign and the lettering becomes unreadable. Long phrases also get very wide. It cannot turn a photo or logo into text, and text with accents, emoji or non-English scripts is rejected, so use a picture converter or an image for those.
Tips for best results
Check the width note before copying: if it is past 80 columns, shorten the text or switch to Small or Mini, otherwise a terminal will wrap the lines and break the shape. Wrap pasted banners in a code block or comment so the monospaced layout survives. ANSI Shadow is drawn with block and box-drawing characters instead of plain keyboard symbols, so use it only where those characters display properly.
Limitations
Input is cut at 60 characters and must be plain ASCII: English letters, digits and basic punctuation. Accented letters, other scripts and emoji produce an error message instead of a banner. Trailing spaces are removed from every line, and the result is plain text with no colour. The ANSI Shadow font produces non-ASCII block characters, so its output is not strictly ASCII even though the tool name says so.
Privacy
The lettering is generated in your browser by the figlet text-banner library. The font you choose is loaded on demand as a small script file from this same site the first time you select it, so that file is downloaded, but nothing you typed is uploaded. The banner stays on your device until you copy it. The site records only that the tool was used.
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