How to use
- Choose an image. High-contrast pictures with a plain background work best.
- Set the width in characters and choose a character set.
- Tick “For dark backgrounds” if it will be shown as light text on a dark background, such as in a terminal.
- Copy the text, or download it as TXT or PNG.
Options explained
- Width in characters
- How many characters per line. Lines are about half as many as columns because characters are roughly twice as tall as they are wide.
- Characters
- Standard uses 10 characters from dense to light, Detailed uses 70 for finer shading, and Blocks uses █▓▒░.
How a picture becomes text
Each block of the image is turned into one character according to its brightness. The Standard character set is ordered from dark to light:
@%#*+=-:. The darkest areas become @ and the lightest become a space. With For dark backgrounds ticked, the order is reversed, so bright areas get the dense characters and a white-on-black terminal looks right.
A character cell is taller than it is wide, so the tool samples roughly two pixel rows for every pixel column. A square picture set to 80 characters wide comes out about 40 lines tall. Use 80 to 120 characters for a terminal or README, and more for a picture you will save as PNG.
Frequently asked questions
Why does it look squashed or stretched?
It has to be viewed in a monospaced font such as Courier, Consolas or Menlo. In other fonts characters have different widths and the picture falls apart.
Why is my picture hard to recognise?
ASCII art only shows brightness. Increase the width, crop the subject tightly, or use a picture with stronger contrast.
Are my images uploaded?
No. Everything happens in your browser.
Privacy
This tool runs entirely in your browser. Your files and text are processed on your device and are never uploaded to our servers.