FIGlet fonts and text banner formatting

What is Text to ASCII Art?

FIGlet turns supported characters into text banners. Try the text generator to compare fonts with your own words.

Open the text generator and enter text to preview every bundled FIGlet font. Type or paste your text; Enter adds a line. Visible font previews update after a short pause. If a font lacks a character, use another result or edit the text. Filter fonts by name or scroll to compare styles. No Generate button is needed. Copy or download the result you prefer. Unlike the image tool, FIGlet uses font definitions rather than sampling pixels.

How FIGlet Fonts Work

FIGlet fonts are stored in .flf (FIGlet Font) files. Each font file contains a header with metadata followed by character definitions that specify exactly how each letter, number, and symbol should be rendered.

• Character mapping: Each printable ASCII character (codes 32–126) is mapped to a multi-line pattern of sub-characters that form its visual representation.
• Height consistency: All characters within a font share the same height (number of lines), ensuring rows align properly when characters are placed side by side.
• Smushing rules: FIGlet supports configurable "smushing" rules that control how adjacent characters overlap or merge, creating tighter, more natural-looking output.
• Hardblank characters: Special placeholder characters ensure proper spacing within character designs without being collapsed by smushing rules.

The rendering process reads each character of your input, retrieves the corresponding multi-line pattern from the font file, and concatenates them horizontally. Smushing rules are then applied to merge overlapping edges, producing clean, readable output.

Compare five FIGlet fonts

These five specimens render "Hello" with the installed FIGlet library: Horizontal Layout Default, Vertical Layout Default, Max Width 80. They are generated at build time, not drawn by hand.

  _   _      _ _       
 | | | | ___| | | ___  
 | |_| |/ _ \ | |/ _ \ 
 |  _  |  __/ | | (_) |
 |_| |_|\___|_|_|\___/ 
                       

  _    _      _ _       
 | |  | |    | | |      
 | |__| | ___| | | ___  
 |  __  |/ _ \ | |/ _ \ 
 | |  | |  __/ | | (_) |
 |_|  |_|\___|_|_|\___/ 
                        
                        

    __  __     ____    
   / / / /__  / / /___ 
  / /_/ / _ \/ / / __ \
 / __  /  __/ / / /_/ /
/_/ /_/\___/_/_/\____/ 
                       

 #     #                             
 #     # ###### #      #       ####  
 #     # #      #      #      #    # 
 ####### #####  #      #      #    # 
 #     # #      #      #      #    # 
 #     # #      #      #      #    # 
 #     # ###### ###### ######  ####  
                                     

  |   |        |  |        
  |   |   _ \  |  |   _ \  
  ___ |   __/  |  |  (   | 
 _|  _| \___| _| _| \___/  
                           

Common Uses

ASCII text art has a wide range of practical and creative applications across the digital world:

Tips for Best Results

Character coverage depends on the FIGlet font. Unsupported or blank glyphs stop generation with a local, font-specific warning, including in all-font previews. Edit your text or explicitly choose another font; no characters are silently removed or transliterated. Supported accents are preserved. Input limit: 4,096 UTF-16 units. Some emoji and combined characters count as more than one unit. Each font result is limited to 200,000 output characters.

Every preview uses the font's default horizontal and vertical layout with a wrapping target of 80 columns. The simplified generator has no layout controls. Keep phrases short or add line breaks, then inspect the complete output before sharing.

• Choose the right font: Simpler fonts like Standard work best for longer text, while decorative fonts like Shadow or Block are better suited for short words or titles.
• Keep text short: ASCII text art expands horizontally — long phrases may wrap awkwardly. Aim for one to three words per line for the cleanest output.
• Use a monospaced font for viewing: ASCII art relies on fixed-width characters to maintain alignment. Always view and share your art in a monospaced font like Courier, Consolas, or your terminal's default font.
• Test across platforms: Different terminals and text editors may render characters slightly differently. Preview your art in the environment where it will be displayed.
• Mind the width: Standard terminal windows are typically 80 characters wide. Choose fonts and text lengths that fit within this limit to avoid line wrapping.
• Stick to ASCII characters in input: FIGlet fonts are designed for standard ASCII printable characters. Special characters, accented letters, or emoji may not render correctly in all fonts.