ascii-banner
Convert text to ASCII art banners using FIGlet fonts. 328 built-in fonts, color output, borders, comment formatting, and fuzzy font search – all with zero dependencies.
| Website: ascii-banner.com | Repository: github.com/nvk/ascii-banner |
Install
# Homebrew (macOS/Linux)
brew install nvk/tap/ascii-banner
# pip
pip install ascii-banner
Quick Start
# Default font (standard)
ascii-banner "Hello"
# Pick a font
ascii-banner -f Doom "Hello"
# Pipe input
echo "Hello" | ascii-banner -f Big
# Color + border
ascii-banner -f Slant -c red --border rounded "Deploy"
Fonts
328 bundled FIGlet fonts, each tagged with categories and rated for size (xs/sm/md/lg/xl) and legibility (1-5).
Browse fonts
# List all fonts
ascii-banner list
# Filter by tag
ascii-banner list block
# Filter by size
ascii-banner list sm
# Preview fonts rendered in their own style
ascii-banner list --preview
# Show all available tags, sizes, and other options
ascii-banner tags
Preview fonts with your text
# Show text in all fonts
ascii-banner --all "Test"
# Show text in fonts matching a tag
ascii-banner -t gothic "Test"
# Show text in fonts matching a size
ascii-banner -s xl "Test"
# Combine tag + size
ascii-banner -t block -s md "Test"
# Sort by legibility (highest first)
ascii-banner -t classic --sort legibility "Test"
Category tags
| Tag | Description |
|---|---|
3d |
3D effects, depth, perspective |
block |
Heavy block/box characters, filled shapes |
bubble |
Rounded, bubble-like characters |
classic |
Traditional FIGlet style |
cursive |
Script, handwriting, flowing |
decorative |
Ornamental, fancy, elaborate |
digital |
LED, LCD, dot matrix, pixel |
gothic |
Dark, medieval, blackletter |
graffiti |
Street art, urban style |
lean |
Thin, lightweight strokes |
mini |
Very small, compact (1-3 lines) |
mono |
Monospace, fixed-width terminal style |
sans |
Clean sans-serif letterforms |
serif |
Serif letterforms |
shadow |
Shadow effects |
slant |
Italic/slanted/oblique |
tech |
Futuristic, sci-fi, cyber |
weird |
Abstract, artistic, hard to read |
Size classes
| Size | Height |
|---|---|
xs |
1-3 lines |
sm |
4-5 lines |
md |
6-8 lines |
lg |
9-12 lines |
xl |
13+ lines |
Colors
Apply color to output with -c / --color. Requires a terminal that supports ANSI escape codes.
# Named colors: black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, white
ascii-banner -c green "OK"
# Hex color
ascii-banner -c "#ff6600" "Fire"
# Rainbow (cycles per character)
ascii-banner -c rainbow "Party"
# Two-color gradient (horizontal)
ascii-banner -c gradient:red:blue "Fade"
# Gradient supports named colors, hex, and extra names: orange, pink, purple
ascii-banner -c gradient:#ff0000:#00ff00 "Xmas"
# Smooth rainbow gradient (full spectrum)
ascii-banner -c gradient:rainbow "Spectrum"
Borders
Wrap output in a box with --border. Five styles available:
# Single line
ascii-banner --border single "Hi"
# ┌──────────────┐
# │ _ _ _ │
# │ | | | (_) │
# │ | |_| |_ │
# │ | _ | | │
# │ |_| |_|_| │
# └──────────────┘
# Double line
ascii-banner --border double "Hi"
# ╔══════════════╗
# ║ ... ║
# ╚══════════════╝
# Rounded corners
ascii-banner --border rounded "Hi"
# ╭──────────────╮
# │ ... │
# ╰──────────────╯
# Heavy/thick
ascii-banner --border heavy "Hi"
# ┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
# ┃ ... ┃
# ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
# ASCII (portable)
ascii-banner --border ascii "Hi"
# +----------------+
# | ... |
# +----------------+
Comment Formatting
Wrap output as a source code comment with --comment. Useful for embedding banners in code.
# Python / Bash / Ruby / Perl
ascii-banner --comment python "api"
# __ _ _ __ _
# / _` | '_ \| |
# | (_| | |_) | |
# \__,_| .__/|_|
# |_|
# JavaScript / TypeScript / Go / Rust / Java / C++
ascii-banner --comment js "api"
// __ _ _ __ _
// / _` | '_ \| |
// | (_| | |_) | |
// \__,_| .__/|_|
// |_|
# C / CSS (block comment)
ascii-banner --comment c "api"
/*
* __ _ _ __ _
* / _` | '_ \| |
* | (_| | |_) | |
* \__,_| .__/|_|
* |_|
*/
# HTML / XML
ascii-banner --comment html "api"
<!--
__ _ _ __ _
/ _` | '_ \| |
| (_| | |_) | |
\__,_| .__/|_|
|_|
-->
# SQL / Lua / Haskell
ascii-banner --comment sql "api"
-- __ _ _ __ _
-- / _` | '_ \| |
-- | (_| | |_) | |
-- \__,_| .__/|_|
-- |_|
Supported languages: bash, c, cpp, css, go, haskell/hs, html, java, javascript/js, lua, perl, python, ruby, rust, shell/sh, sql, typescript/ts, xml.
Fuzzy Search
Misspell a font name and ascii-banner will suggest the closest match:
$ ascii-banner -f stanard "Hi"
Font 'stanard' not found. Using 'Standard'.
$ ascii-banner -f blok "Hi"
Font 'blok' not found. Using 'Block'.
Other matches: Blocks, Bloody
Fuzzy matching uses substring search, character sequence matching, and Levenshtein edit distance to find the best result.
Suppress Output
# Flag: suppress all output
ascii-banner -q "hidden"
ascii-banner --quiet "hidden"
# Environment variable: suppress all output (any value except "" and "0")
NO_BANNER=1 ascii-banner "hidden"
Useful for conditionally disabling banners in scripts or CI.
Full Flag Reference
| Flag | Short | Description |
|---|---|---|
text |
Text to render (positional, or pipe via stdin) | |
--font NAME |
-f |
Font name (default: standard). Supports fuzzy matching |
--font-file PATH |
-F |
Load a .flf font from a file path |
--all |
-a |
Render text in all available fonts |
--tag TAG |
-t |
Filter fonts by category tag |
--size SIZE |
-s |
Filter fonts by size (xs, sm, md, lg, xl) |
--sort KEY |
Sort multi-font output: name, size, legibility (default: name) |
|
--width N |
-w |
Max output width (default: terminal width) |
--color COLOR |
-c |
Color: name, #hex, rainbow, gradient:c1:c2, gradient:rainbow |
--justify ALIGN |
-j |
Justification: left, center, right (default: left) |
--border STYLE |
Border box: single, double, rounded, heavy, ascii |
|
--comment LANG |
Wrap as code comment for the given language | |
--quiet |
-q |
Suppress all output |
Subcommands
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
ascii-banner list |
List all fonts with size and legibility info |
ascii-banner list <tag\|size> |
List fonts filtered by tag or size class |
ascii-banner list --preview |
List fonts with a rendered preview |
ascii-banner tags |
Show all tags, sizes, border styles, and comment formats |
History
Curious about the origins of ASCII art? Check out asciihistory.com.
License
MIT – Copyright (c) 2026 nvk
Bundled FIGlet font files (.flf) retain their original licenses as specified in each font’s comment header.