Text Art and ASCII Art: Pictures Made of Letters
A playful look at how people draw with keyboard characters, from old-school ASCII art to modern text decorations, and how to make your own.
Long before emoji, people drew pictures using only keyboard characters. It's a fun creative use of a plain text editor.
What is ASCII art?
ASCII art makes images from the characters on a keyboard: letters, numbers and symbols. The name comes from ASCII, the early character set that covered these basic characters. It became popular in the early days of computing, when graphics were limited.
A simple example
/\_/ ( o.o )
> ^ <
Three lines, and a cat appears.
Emoticons
The first emoticons were tiny text art:
| Emoticon | Meaning |
|---|---|
| :-) | smile |
| :-( | sad |
| ;-) | wink |
| :-D | big grin |
| :-O | surprise |
Many people still use simple versions like :).
Making your own
- Sketch first. Plan the shape on paper.
- Use a monospaced font, where every character is the same width, so the columns line up. Many editors use one by default.
- Choose characters by how they look. Dots for light areas, hash signs for dark areas, slashes and pipes for lines.
- Build line by line.
- Save as plain text, so the alignment is preserved.
Shading with characters
Different characters look darker or lighter on the page:
| Lighter | Darker |
|---|---|
| a full stop or a colon | a hash sign or an at sign |
Using a range of characters, you can create shading and depth.
Uses
- Fun notes and greetings.
- Decorating a README or a text file with a banner.
- Dividers, such as a row of dashes or equals signs.
- Simple diagrams, such as flowcharts or family trees.
A simple divider
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Notes for the week
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Text art and emoji
Modern text can include emoji and symbols, which add colour. But traditional ASCII art needs no special support, so it displays almost anywhere.
Sharing
When you send text art in a message, spacing may change if the app uses a proportional font. Sending it as a file or in a code block keeps it intact.
Have fun
Text art is a gentle creative exercise, and it needs nothing but a keyboard and a text editor.
Notepad+ Text Editor
A fast, advanced text editor for notes and code, with emoji support
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