>-----------------------------------------------------< __ ________ _______________ ____ / |/ / _/ | / / _/ ____/ | / __ \ _ / /|_/ // // |/ // // /_ / /| |/ / / /(_) / / / // // /| // // __/ / ___ / /_/ /_ All the stuff you need for /_/ /_/___/_/ |_/___/_/ /_/ |_\___\_(_) ASCII Art! >------------------ By Martin Atkins -----------------< Monospaced Fonts Text Editors Ascii Utils >-----------------------------------------------------< __ __ _ | \/ | ___ _ __ ___ ___ _ __ __ _ ___ ___ __| | | |\/| |/ _ \| '_ \ / _ \/ __| '_ \ / _` |/ __/ _ \/ _` | | | | | (_) | | | | (_) \__ \ |_) | (_| | (_| __/ (_| | |_| |_|\___/|_| |_|\___/|___/ .__/ \__,_|\___\___|\__,_| / _| ___ _ |_|| |_ ___ | |_ / _ \| '_ \| __/ __| | _| (_) | | | | |_\__ \ |_| \___/|_| |_|\__|___/ Almost all ASCII art is created and intended to be viewed in a monospaced, or fixed width font. Find your operating system/computer on the list below and find a font on your system that is on the list. Windows: FixedSys (Supplied with Windows) Courier New (Supplied with Windows) Courier (Supplied with Windows) Lucida Console (Supplied with Microsoft Win95 Plus!) Topaz New Monotype.com Terminal Lucida Sans Typewiter OCR A Extended OCRB Netextmo Video Console Terminal Andale Mono Crystal HyperFont Amiga: Topaz (In ROM) Courier (Supplied with WorkBench 2+) Pearl Siesta XEN (Comes with MagicWB) XCourier (Comes with MagicWB) ascii tiny AppleMac: Courier Monaco ZTerm Acorn: Corpus (in Resources) System (in Resources) If you can`t find any of the fonts on the list, please try looking at this in all fonts available: iiiii iiiii iiiii iiiii| mmmmm mmmmm mmmmm mmmmm| In a fixed width font, both of the | symbols should match in distance from the left side of the screen. If you find a common font that isn`t on the list, please email mart.atkins@bigfoot.com and tell me about it, along with what operating system/computer it is from. .---- To get a Monospaced/Fixed Width font in MS Outlook Express --> |Click Tools/ Options. |Click the Read tab. |Click the Fonts button. |Select Courier or another fixed width font for ALL of the listboxes. |Select Smallest. |Click OK. |Click OK. '------------------ (Thanks to aardvarko) -------------------------> >------------------------------------------------------< _____ _ |_ _|____ _| |_ | |/ _ \ \/ / __| | | __/> <| |_ _____ |_|\___/_/\_\\__| | ____|__| (_) |_ ___ _ __ ___ | _| / _` | | __/ _ \| '__/ __| | |__| (_| | | || (_) | | \__ \ |_____\__,_|_|\__\___/|_| |___/ A lot of ASCII art is made in a text editor - usually like a wordprocessor but without text formatting functions. Un*x: vi pico emacs jed joe ed jove Windows95: Notepad (Comes with Windows!) /98 EDIT.COM (Comes with windows!) MicroEMACS EditPad PFE32 UltraEdit (www.ultraedit.com) TextPad (www.textpad.com - shareware) Vim (www.pcisys.net/~kscott/vim/) Windows3: Notepad (Comes with Windows!) MicroEMACS PFE UltraEdit (www.ultraedit.com) MSDOS: EDIT (Comes with DOS 5/6 - Type EDIT at command line) QEdit MicroEmacs GNU Emacs TheDraw (shareware) AcidDraw (shareware) Amiga: Ed (On Workbench Disk - run 'Ed ' in shell) MicroEMACS (Supplied with Workbench on Extras disk) Blacks Editor CygnusEd AZ NotePad (included with Workbench 1.2 and 1.3) TED (Included with ACID Blitz Basic 2.1) SuperTED (Included with Blitz Basic support suite) AppleMac: Nisus SimpleText (included with MacOS) TeachText (included with MacOS) Saint Edit (shareware $10) BBEdit (commercial but free light version is available) Tex-Edit Plus (shareware) Linux: joe nedit Acorn: !Edit (in Resources) !Zap !StrongEd Atari: Everest QED Steno EditPro Commodore Zed 64/128: NovaPic >------------------------------------------------------< _ ____ ____ ___ ___ / \ / ___| / ___|_ _|_ _| _ _ _ _ _ / _ \ \___ \| | | | | | | | | | |_(_) |___ / ___ \ ___) | |___ | | | | | | | | __| | / __| /_/ \_\____/ \____|___|___|| |_| | |_| | \__ \ --------------------------- \___/ \__|_|_|___/ Some utils to help with the creation of ASCIIArt: * FIGlet This great program makes ascii 'banners' from text - the titles in these lists are a good example. A few examples: _____ ___ ____ _ _ | ___|_ _/ ___| | ___| |_ | |_ | | | _| |/ _ \ __| | _| | | |_| | | __/ |_ |_| |___\____|_|\___|\__| 88888888888 88 ,ad8888ba, 88 88 88 d8"' `"8b 88 ,d 88 88 d8' 88 88 88aaaaa 88 88 88 ,adPPYba, MM88MMM 88""""" 88 88 88888 88 a8P_____88 88 88 88 Y8, 88 88 8PP""""""" 88 88 88 Y8a. .a88 88 "8b, ,aa 88, 88 88 `"Y88888P" 88 `"Ybbd8"' "Y888 8"""" 8 8""""8 8 8 8 " e eeee eeeee 8eeee 8e 8e 8 8 8 88 88 88 ee 8e 8eee 8e 88 88 88 8 88 88 88 88 88 88eee8 88eee 88ee 88 Various fonts are availiable (.flf files) and there are versions of FIGlet for almost any operating system and computer type: http://st-www.cs.uiuc.edu/users/chai/figlet.html ftp://nicoh.com/pub/figlet/ The windows version of FIGlet, FigWin, is still only in beta and has a few bugs. Also, you dont always get the results you want without experimenting with the options first. However it does have features not found in many other versions, like vertical smushing and weird line fitting. There are also many online, web based versions of FIGlet available also, one of which is http://www.surfplaza.com/figlet/ If you are a DOS user, you can get a GUI for DOS FIGlet at: http://voices.vossnet.co.uk/a/atkins/fdg.htm which should make the running of FigDOS easier. FIGlet+the GUI are also available from this page. If required, I will email FigDOS and the GUI in one zip file - just email mart.atkins@bigfoot.com and ask! * GIFscii GIFscii, and it`s variants, will take an image file (usually GIF) and convert it to an ascii picture. The results arn`t brilliant, but can serve as a good starting point for an ASCII picture. Do a web search for one of these, as they are everywhere. Versions are available for a wide variety of operating systems and computer types. These conversions can be viewed as graphics using ASC2PIC, a program that will basically 'draw' ascii art using grey pixels on the screen. For a copy, email mart.atkins@bigfoot.com. Try the following URLs for a starting point gopher://twinbrook.cis.uab.edu/1A/atools.70 ftp://ftp.wwa.com/pub/Scarecrow/Gifscii/. [URLs taken from alt.ascii-art FAQ by Matthew Thomas] .- Sample output from BMP2ASC -----. | ;$XXHXXXXXXX+. | | :XXXHHHHHXHHHHXXX$. | | /XXXXHHHXXHHHHHHHXXXH/ | | /XXXXXHHH$HHHHHHHHHHHHH% | | .XXXXXXHHX$HHHHHHHHHHHHHH; | | ;XXXXXHX$XX$$$XHHHHHHHHXHX. | | .$XXXH%/;;;::::;/$HHHHHHHXX; | | =XXXHX//;;:::::;;/+HXHHHHHH$ | | /HXXH$//;;;;::::;;/$XHHHHHXX- | | %HXXH%/;;;;;;;;+$$%$XHHHHHHX/ | | XXXXHX$X$%+//+++;$%HXHHHHHHX$. | |.XXXXHX+/////://;///+$XHHH@HHHHH/.| |,X$XXHH%;;;;/;///;;;+$XHHH@HHHH@@@| |-X$XXH@H+/++/;/++;//%XHHHH@HHHH@@@| |=$$XXHHH@@%%$$%++++%$XXHHHHHXH@@@@| |=$$XXX$$@@@H%++++%%%$$XHXH@HH@@@@@| |=$XHXX%$@@@@@%+++%$%$$XXXHH$H@@@@@| |-+%XHHH@@@@@@@X+/+%$$$$$$%%/=$@@@@| | //XXXH@@@@@@@@@@@@X%%++///=--/H@@| | %XXHH@@@@@@@@@@@@X+;/;;=-,,,-$@| | =XHXHH@@@@@@@@@@@@X/,. ..-,..,,/| | $H@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@XH;....,......| '------------------- for Windows! -' * ASC-TOOL This program does rotation and flipping of ascii art. It is most useful when you need a left facing ascii art to face right, or something like that. * RESIZE Performs 'pixel' resizes on ASCII Art... adding or removing characters to resize the pic. The size is a percentage of the original. * ASC2PIC/ASC2PIC2 This is the reverse of GIFscii... takes solid style ascii and 'draws' it as a picture on the screen. Good for viewing ASCII conversions as the graphics they came from. ASC2PIC2 extends this capability by allowing viewing of both White on Black and Black on White pics to be viewed. * ASCHALF Resamples asciiart to 50% graphically. It resamples the picture as if it were a .GIF or something, and then converts it back to ascii art using a similar method to GIFscii. * LGIFScii This program attempts to take a lineart GIF pic and convert it into Line Art ascii. The results arn`t great, but it can be used to get the idea of a shape and then fiddle with is later. * TRIM Removes blank spaces from the end of lines in text files. Not specifically an asciiart utility but useful just the same. * ASCII-EDITOR for Windows The author claims: - ASCII-Pic, Pic-ASCII conversion - Fill with background pattern - Divers textimport functions - Invert, painting circles, center - Drag & Drop - ... The program has a lot of text import functions. You could for example import a text file as spiral. Nice for emails ;) The program can convert pictures to ASCII art (greyscaled), ASCII art to pictures. Flip, rotate, resize, cut, copy, paste, ... These are only a few samples of the 'ASCII-Editor' functions. I have yet to try the program, so am unable to comment. I will write a proper write-up for it when I try it. http://studenten.freepage.de/meph/ascii/editor/_index.htm The program is freeware. * TheDraw TheDraw is primarily an ANSI editor, but is suitable for ASCII art also. It features many features not availiable in most 'standard' text editors, like filling an area with a character, or dragging a block around. There are many features specific to DOS ansi editing, which I will not go into here. * AcidDraw AcidDraw is a similar program developed by artists for artists. A similar feel and feature set of TheDraw, but geared more towards a static-screen (non-animated) drawing. It's sole purpose in life is to create ASCII and ANSI art. Some nifty features include the ability to flip screens horizontally and vertically and otherwise manipulate text-based art in ways that a normal text-EDITOR simply can not do. Also shareware. (And the programmer is still alive but no bugs have ever been reported, to the fault of the software.) [Text supplied by RaD Man] Both TheDraw and ACiDDraw latest versions are available at http://artpacks.acid.org/programs/editors/ Please note that none of these ASCII Utils are necesary for creation of ASCII Art, but merely to aid creation It is totally possible to make ASCII Art in any of the editors on the 'Text Editors' list. TheDraw and AcidDraw, however are editors in their own right, so could be used instead of a 'traditional' text editor. I have a few of these editors, but not all. If you email me and ask I`ll send it if I have it! My email address is at various places in this document. >------------------------------------------------------< .-----------------------------------------. |Compiled by Martin Atkins with help from:| | * Veronica Karlsson | | * Jorn Barger | | * Colin Douthwaite | | * Randy Gardner | | * Ilmari Karonen | | * aardvarko | | * gumby | | * Valentin Valciu | | * Hayley Jane Wakenshaw | | * llizard | | * Sami Sihvonen | | * Doug Wilson | | * Brock Kevin Nambo | | * Cipher | | * Ben Norwood | | * Matthew Thomas | | * RaD Man | | * natedac | | * Joergen | | * msh210 | | * stephane HAbeTT roux | | * Dom Esplen | | * Hilton Janfield | | * FireDraake | '-----------------------------------------' >------------- Last Updated 17-12-98 -----------------< Also available on the web at: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/7373/minifaq.htm http://www.ludd.luth.se/users/vk/q/mga_faq.html http://voices.vossnet.co.uk/a/atkins/minifaq.htm http://bungleandmart.home.ml.org/ascmfaq.htm