ASCII Art Generator

Type a word or short phrase and get it back as large block letters built from ASCII characters — the classic style you see at the top of README files, CLI tool banners and old BBS text art. Pick from 6 different fonts. Everything is rendered locally in your browser.

What Is This Tool?

This tool converts text into "FIGlet"-style ASCII art: each letter is drawn using a grid of specific ASCII characters (mostly spaces, underscores, pipes and slashes) arranged to look like a large block letter when displayed in a monospace font. FIGlet fonts are a decades-old format still used today for terminal banners, code comments and command-line tool splash screens.

Different fonts produce very different styles from the same input — "Standard" is the classic boxy look, "Slant" leans the letters diagonally, "Doom" and "Ghost" go for a heavier, more dramatic block style, and "Small" fits more text into a narrower space.

Why Use It?

Instant banner text for README files, CLI tool splash screens, or code comment headers.
6 distinct font styles to choose from, switch instantly without re-typing.
Output is plain text (monospace-aligned) — paste it directly into any code file, terminal, or plain-text field.
100% private: your text is rendered locally, nothing is uploaded.
Free, no sign-up, no watermark.

How to Use

Type a short word or phrase (Latin letters and numbers work best).
Pick a font from the dropdown.
Click Generate.
Click Copy to grab the plain-text result — it stays aligned as long as you paste it somewhere using a monospace font.

Example

Input

HI

Output

  _   _ ___ 
 | | | |_ _|
 | |_| || | 
 |  _  || | 
 |_| |_|___|

Rendered with the Standard font. Copy this exactly as shown into a monospace context (a code block, a terminal, a README) — in a proportional font the alignment will look broken because the spacing relies on every character being the same width.

Practical tips

Always paste the result into a monospace context (Markdown code fence, terminal, code comment) — that's what keeps the letters aligned.
Short words (under ~10 characters) work best; longer phrases get very wide very fast and may need to be split across multiple lines manually.
"Standard" and "Small" are the safest defaults for README banners since they stay reasonably narrow.
If a character looks missing or wrong, it's likely outside the font's supported glyph set (Latin letters, numbers, basic punctuation only).

Where ASCII banners actually get used

The most common real use is a project name banner at the top of a README.md or a CLI tool's --help / startup output — FIGlet has been the de facto standard for this since it was released in the 1990s, and the same font format is still supported by dozens of libraries today.

It also shows up in code comment headers to visually separate sections of a long file, and in terminal splash screens for command-line tools. If you're formatting the surrounding code rather than adding a banner, the JSON formatter and text diff tools handle the rest of that workflow.

→ JSON Formatter · Text Diff

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does my ASCII art look broken when I paste it into a chat app or document?

ASCII art relies on every character being exactly the same width (a monospace font). If you paste it somewhere that uses a proportional font — most chat apps, word processors and web forms by default — the letters will look misaligned or squished. It displays correctly in code blocks, terminals, code comments, and anywhere else set to a monospace font.

Can I use this for non-English text?

These FIGlet fonts only include glyphs for Latin letters, numbers and basic punctuation — there's no CJK, Cyrillic or Arabic support in any of the 6 fonts here. Non-Latin characters will either be skipped or rendered incorrectly.

What's the difference between the 6 fonts?

Standard is the original, most widely recognized FIGlet style. Slant tilts the letters diagonally. Big and Small vary the overall letter size and width. Doom and Ghost use heavier, more solid block shapes for a more dramatic look. Try a few — the same word can look completely different depending on the font.

Is there a length limit?

No hard limit is enforced, but ASCII banner fonts are meant for short words or phrases — a handful of characters per line. Long sentences will still render, but each character can end up 5-10 regular characters wide, so the result becomes impractically wide to read or paste anywhere.

Does this upload my text anywhere?

No. The text-to-ASCII-art conversion (the FIGlet algorithm and font data) runs entirely as JavaScript in your browser. Nothing you type is sent to a server.