__ __ __ _,
\\ \\ / ___ '|| ___ ___ __ _ _ ___ _/|_ ___
\\ /\\ / //_\) || // \)// \\ ||'||'|| //_\) || // \\
\/ \/ \\__,_||_\\__,\\_//_||_||_||_\\__, \|_\\_//
___ __ ___ () () ___ _,_ _/|_
__\\ (/_'// \)'||'|| ==== __\\'||\) ||
((_||_,_/)\\__,_||_||_ ((_||_||_ \|_
Answers to frequently asked questions in the ASCII art Usenet groups
alt.ascii-art
alt.ascii-art.animation
rec.arts.ascii
Author: Matthew Thomas (mpt26 @ student . canterbury . ac . nz)
Version: 2.0.2
Last changed: 1998-09-19
NOTE: If you are new to Usenet, please read the messages in
news.announce.newusers before posting to any Usenet groups.
This FAQ is regularly posted to alt.ascii-art and alt.ascii-art.animation. It is
also available at the following locations.
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/7373/faq.htm
http://artpacks.acid.org/faqs/faq-altasciiart.html
http://vibes.vossnet.co.uk/i/ighaig/ascfaq.htm
http://www.stud.uni-hannover.de/~freise/ascii/faq.html
http://fmf.ml.org/~shimrod/asciiart/FAQ.html
Contents
1. What is ASCII art?
2. What isn't ASCII art?
3. What goes on in the ASCII art Usenet groups?
4. How do I view ASCII art?
5. How do I draw my own ASCII art?
6. What should I know before posting ASCII art?
7. Can I post to ask for some text drawn in ASCII?
8. Can I post to ask for an ASCII art picture?
9. How do I get an existing picture converted to ASCII art?
10. Can I post or use other people's ASCII art?
11. What should I know about signature files?
12. Where can I find more ASCII art?
1. What is ASCII art?
ASCII art is any kind of artwork -- pictures, charts, cartoons, whatever --
drawn with the characters in the ASCII character set.
The ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) character set is
a set of 128 characters (0 to 127) which are standard on almost all types of
computer. The only characters used in ASCII art are those with the values 32 to
126, which are shown below, and 13, which represents a carriage return (new
line). The other characters in the ASCII character set (0-12, 13-31, and 127)
are control codes for representing things such as `end of file' and `backspace';
they should not be used in ASCII art.
032 [space] 048 0 064 @ 080 P 096 ` 112 p
033 ! 049 1 065 A 081 Q 097 a 113 q
034 " 050 2 066 B 082 R 098 b 114 r
035 # 051 3 067 C 083 S 099 c 115 s
036 $ 052 4 068 D 084 T 100 d 116 t
037 % 053 5 069 E 085 U 101 e 117 u
038 & 054 6 070 F 086 V 102 f 118 v
039 ' 055 7 071 G 087 W 103 g 119 w
040 ( 056 8 072 H 088 X 104 h 120 x
041 ) 057 9 073 I 089 Y 105 i 121 y
042 * 058 : 074 J 090 Z 106 j 122 z
043 + 059 ; 075 K 091 [ 107 k 123 {
044 , 060 < 076 L 092 \ 108 l 124 |
045 - 061 = 077 M 093 ] 109 m 125 }
046 . 062 > 078 N 094 ^ 110 n 126 ~
047 / 063 ? 079 O 095 _ 111 o
These characters are almost completely standard, except for a few slight
variations which you should keep in mind when drawing and viewing ASCII art:
# (hash/pound):
a hash symbol on most computers, a pound (currency) symbol on some British
ones
| (bar):
a vertical line in most fonts, but in some it is split in the middle
^ (caret):
differs in size depending on the font used
~ (tilde):
appears in the middle of the line in some fonts, at the top in others
' (apostrophe/single quote):
tilts southwest-northeast in some fonts, is vertical in others (this also
applies to the comma (,)).
Here's a small example of ASCII art using some of these variable characters: a
snow-scene paperweight, drawn by Joan Stark. How good it looks will depend to
some extent on which font and computer system you are using to view it.
____
.-" +' "-.
/.'.'A_'*`.\
|:.*'/\-\. ':|
|:.'.||"|.'*:|
\:~^~^~^~^:/
/`-....-'\
jgs / \
`-.,____,.-'
People use ASCII art for a variety of reasons, some of which are:
it is the most universal computer art form in the world -- every computer
system capable of displaying multi-line text can display ASCII art, without
needing to have a graphics mode or support a particular graphics file format;
an ASCII picture is hundreds of times smaller in file size than its GIF or BMP
equivalent, while still giving a good idea of what something looks like;
it is easy to copy from one file to another;
it's fun to do!
2. What isn't ASCII art?
The following specialized artforms are not ASCII art in the `pure' sense, and
are not welcome in the ASCII art Usenet groups.
ANSI, `extended ASCII', or `high ASCII' art. Many computer systems have an
extended character set of 256 or more characters, based on the ANSI or Unicode
character sets and having the first 128 characters identical to ASCII. These
characters should not be used in ASCII art because many types of computer
system do not support them, and even those that do may not display them in a
standard way (for example, the Windows ANSI character set is different from
the Macintosh ANSI character set).
HTML art. HTML, the language used in Web pages, can be used to add special
effects such as colours, font size, and (ugh) blinking text to ascii art, and
HTML can be read by some newsreaders. However, the key word here is `some'. To
many newsreaders, HTML art will just appear as a jumble of <TAGS> and will be
totally unrecognizable.
If you want to create HTML art, do so by all means, but put it on a Web page
and post the page address (URL) to the appropriate Usenet group. Advice on how
to do this can be found at
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Studios/9334/asciionpage.htm.
ASCII art animated using JavaScript. This relies not only on the newsreader
being able to display HTML, but also being able to run JavaScript. As with
HTML art, put it on a Web page and post the address to
alt.ascii-art.animation.
3. What goes on in the ASCII art Usenet groups?
In the ASCII art Usenet groups people discuss ASCII art, post ASCII pictures,
post improved versions or variations of pictures other people have drawn, and
generally have fun.
Types of messages which we usually enjoy seeing include:
look, here's an ASCII picture I drew ...
REQ: xyz (ie, has anyone got any ASCII pictures of xyz?)
suggestions on, or improvements of, other people's ASCII pictures
hey-guys-love-your-work-type messages!
Types of messages which we usually *don't* enjoy seeing include:
messages with the subject `ASCII art' (try to be a bit more informative,
please)
make money fast!!! ... (yawn, yawn, snore)
heres the adress of my web site, come see it pleez (why should we?)
don't read this, this is a test (that's what alt.test, misc.test, and many
other `test' groups are for).
There are three ASCII art Usenet groups. alt.ascii-art is the main group, where
most of the discussion takes place.
rec.arts.ascii is a `best-of' group, for posting the best ASCII art from
alt.ascii-art. It is a moderated group -- all messages pass through an
intermediary (the moderator) who checks them for appropriateness before sending
them to the group itself. The advantage of this is that there isn't any unwanted
advertising in the group; however, the frequency of postings to rec.arts.ascii
is extremely low at the time of writing (it was resurrected in November 1997
after the previous moderator, Bob Allison (`Scarecrow') retired in December
1996).
If your news server isn't set up to allow direct posting to rec.arts.ascii,
e-mail your message to the moderator, Don Bertino: bertino-@-netcom-.-com
(remove the dashes first).
alt.ascii-art.animation is specifically for discussion and postings of animated
ASCII art [see Question 12].
4. How do I view ASCII art?
If a picture you see posted to one of the ASCII art Usenet groups looks a
complete mess to you, don't panic. There are several reasons why it may look
weird.
If none of the pictures in the group look like what the sender describes them
as, then you're probably using a proportional font. To view (and draw) ASCII
art, you must use a fixed-width font -- one where all characters are the same
width (like on an ordinary typewriter). If you're not sure if your font is
fixed-width or not, check the following two lines and see if they're the same
length.
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii|
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm|
If they aren't, find the option in your newsreader which lets you specify
which font to use. If you just have a choice between proportional and fixed
width, choose fixed width. If you have a choice of which font to use, try
different ones until you find a fixed-width one (using the `i's and `m's above
as a guide). Popular fixed width fonts include Courier, Monaco, Fixedsys;
anything with `fixed', `terminal', or `Courier' in its name will probably be
fixed-width.
Some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) supply newsreaders to their customers
which, strange as it seems, don't allow them to use a fixed-width font. If
this applies to you, there's not much you can do except to ask them for a
newsreader which does; or switch ISPs.
If there are a lot of almost-blank lines in the picture, then the message is
probably suffering from `wrapping'. This wrapping may be being done by your
newsreader; see if it has an option called `wrap long lines' or similar, and
make sure it is turned off. If this doesn't work, then the wrapping was
probably done by the news program of the person who sent the picture, in which
case there's not much you can do -- everybody else will be seeing the same
thing.
If there are a lot of < and > symbols in the picture, with words like HTML,
FONT COLOR, B, I, and so on inside them, then the picture has been sent in
HTML format [see Question 2], and your newsreader does not understand HTML
(most newsreaders don't).
If you still can't work out what the picture is supposed to be, try using a
smaller font (if you can) and moving a couple of metres away. If it still
looks unrecognizable, then it's probably a problem with the news program used
by the person who sent the message -- or maybe it's just a really bad picture!
5. How do I draw my own ASCII art?
You don't need a special program to draw ASCII art. It can be drawn using any
text editor, such as SimpleText or BBEdit in MacOS, Notepad in Windows, nedit,
vi, or pico in Unix, BEd or AZ in AmigaOS, edit in DOS, or any of the various
Emacs editors. You can use a word processor to draw ASCII art, but remember: (1)
use a fixed-width font [see Question 4]; and (2) using any special formatting
(bold/italic/coloured etc) is a waste of time, as it will be lost when you post
the picture.
There are some features of editors and word processors which can help when
drawing ASCII art.
Overtype, also known as overstrike: removes the need for you to constantly
realign characters using the Backspace, Space, and Delete keys. Try the Insert
key if there is one on your keyboard, or look in your program's Options or
Preferences.
Rectangular copy and paste: allows you to select rectangular sections of text
(not just rows or parts of rows). On programs which have this feature, it is
usually done by holding down a key such as Ctrl while selecting text.
Find/Change: allows you to change all the characters of one value to another
(eg change all the ~s to "s).
But before you start, a word about fonts. For ASCII art you should use a
fixed-width font [see Question 4], because every type of computer system is
guaranteed to have one, and that after all is one of the main reasons ASCII art
exists -- because everyone can view it. Different fixed- width fonts do vary
slightly in the height of the characters, but for most drawings this doesn't
matter that much.
DON'T try to post pictures drawn in a proportional-width (ie non-fixed-width)
font: even if you specify the exact font you used, the chances of other people
being able to read it are pretty slim (even `standard' proportional fonts such
as Times New Roman can vary in width from computer to computer).
The other thing to be aware of with fonts is the difference between serif and
sans serif. Here's roughly how an `m' looks in both:
__ __ __ __ __
|/ \ / \ |/ \ / \
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
_|_ _|_ _|_ | | |
Serif Sans serif
The serif version has little strokes, or serifs, at the end of most of the main
strokes, while the sans serif version doesn't (sans means `without'). For
example, Courier is a serif font, and Monaco is sans serif. This isn't often
important, but if you're using a sans serif font, just remember to use the
vertical bar (|, above \ on most keyboards) to draw vertical lines, and not the
capital i (I), otherwise it will look weird for people using serif fonts. It
also means that you should think carefully before using characters like L and 7
for various corners -- they won't always look that good with a serif font.
One way to make drawing ASCII art easier is to type a row of spaces for however
wide you want your picture, and then copy this row and paste it for however many
rows high you think your art will get. Then turn overtype on, stick your cursor
somewhere in the middle, and you're ready to draw.
If nothing springs to mind immediately, start with the ASCII art equivalent of
the stick figure:
O
/H\ Person
/ \
Fiddle with it, and see what you can do ...
A _ o _
O Person wearing O` _O_ (< = Person about
/H\ a dunce's hat /H\ Professor XHX Angel /H-' to eat a
/ \ / \ / \ / \ sandwich...?
Gradually you'll be able to add things like scenery around the person:
___ ,---.
/ __\/---. ._,
/ \@-. -(_)-
@ ' ` Person playing a banjo
,P while sitting against a
d'O_, palm tree ...
____@/|/________
::::@\O_,:::::::
::::::::::::mt-3
Draw your cat, your toaster, your musical instruments, your partner, anything
that will sit still long enough -- practice makes, if not perfect, then at least
pretty good. Whether you do small drawings (less work involved) or large ones
(easier to make a drawing recognizable) is up to you.
The things which give beginning ASCII artists the most trouble are usually
diagonal lines and circles. Here are some lines of various angles:
| | / ,' ,-' _,-'
| .' / ,' ,-' _,-'
| | / ,' ,-' _,-' __..--""
| .' / ,' ,-' _,-' __..--""
| | / ,' ,-' ,-' __..--"" _______________
And here are a few circular shapes:
_____ __
.-' `-. ,dP""Yb,
.' `. ,d" "b,
/ \ d' _ `Y,
_ ; ; 8 8 `b
__ ,'" "`. | | `b,_,aP P
__ ,' `. / \ ; ; """" d'
.' `. / | | | \ / ,P"
_ | | | / \ / `. .' a,.__,aP"
o (_) `.__.' `.__.' `.___.' `-._____.-' `"""''
The spiral is a good example of anti-aliasing -- using the particular shape of
some characters (especially b, d, and P) to smooth the edge of a solid shape.
A final point: don't use the Tab key. Pressing Tab will go along a certain
number of spaces in your editor/word processor -- but that `certain number' is
different for different newsreaders, editors, and so on, so your picture may
suffer from what is known as `tab damage' when other people try to view it. Just
use spaces instead.
[See Question 12 for links to other tutorials on drawing ASCII art.]
6. What should I know before posting ASCII art?
It doesn't matter if your ASCII art isn't particularly good; we'd like to see it
anyway. We won't be rude about it (although you'd better tell us what it is, or
we might ask :-), but if it shows potential, you may find that other people will
`re-diddle' it -- change a few characters, make it a bit better, and re-post it.
HOWEVER, there are a few things you should check before you post any piece of
ASCII art.
Are you sending it as plain text? Some news programs, particularly those built
in to Web browsers, read and write messages in HTML (HyperText Markup
Language, the language which Web pages are written in). HTML allows colours
and (using JavaScript) animations in ASCII art, but few newsreaders support
it, and those which don't will show a whole lot of garbage text with your
picture hidden inside it.
So if you have one of these HTML-sending programs, PLEASE select the option
which tells it to send messages as plain text only. If you have a picture
which uses HTML for a particular feature (such as colours or animation), put
it on a Web page, and post the URL of the page to alt.ascii-art, rather than
posting the whole picture.
Is it under 72 characters wide? Most news readers can only show lines which
are under either 72, 76, or 80 characters wide, so if your picture is wider
than 72 characters it may get wrapped [see Question 4). Also remove any
unnecessary space characters from the end of each line of the picture, to
prevent lines from being too long (and getting wrapped) without your
realizing.
Have you used any control codes? Inserting control codes (ASCII characters 0
to 31) in a picture can sometimes achieve interesting effects on your computer
screen or news reader, such as reversing text, changing its colour, and so on.
DO NOT post any of these pictures to alt.ascii-art, for two reasons:
the effects that the control codes have on your news reader are almost
certainly going to be different from those on the thousands of other news
readers that other people use
on some news readers, control codes can cause messed up displays, messages
not appearing, or (in some cases) the news reader crashing.
If your first line starts with one or more spaces, stick a dummy line (such as
-- or .) above it, to prevent the spaces from being ignored by your news
program (this only applies to some news programs, and only to the first line
of the message).
If you're not sure about whether your message will turn out ok, post it to a
test group (such as alt.test or misc.test) first and make sure (using a
different newsreader, if you can) that you can read it ok.
[See Question 10 for advice on posting someone else's ASCII art.]
7. Can I post to ask for some text drawn in ASCII?
Probably not, unless we're REALLY bored. The reason for this is that there is a
program called Figlet which does that sort of thing automatically -- you type in
`Jane Smith', and you get back
___ __,
( / ( o _/_ /
/ __, _ _ `. _ _ , / /_
_/_(_/(_/ /_(/_ (___)/ / /_(_(__/ /_
//
(/
in this and a whole lot of other fonts. The ASCII text-art produced by Figlet
can be quite stunning, so it's best to try it first before asking for help from
the newsgroup.
The Figlet home page is at http://st-www.cs.uiuc.edu/users/chai/figlet.html.
This site links to the FTP site ftp://ftp.internexus.net/pub/figlet/, where you
can download versions of the program for many different platforms.
If you have a Web browser which has form support (most browsers do), you can run
Figlet on the Internet by going to one of the following sites and choosing your
text and options on the Web page. Different sites offer different options (eg
multiple fonts at once, justification, line length etc). Some of these sites
also provide an e-mail Figlet service for people with browsers which don't
support forms.
http://www.surfplaza.com/figlet/
http://wwwcn.cern.ch/~rigaut/FigletJava.html
http://www.schnoggo.com/figlet.html
http://www.inf.utfsm.cl/cgi-bin/figlet/
http://saigon.mit.edu/dinhyen/figlet/figlet.html
http://www.mediacube.de/cgi-bin/moniteurs/figlet/
http://www.sconnect.net/figlet/index.cgi
http://boulder.Colorado.EDU/~kai/figlet.html
http://www.ifi.unizh.ch/cgi-bin/bwagner/FIGLET/figlet.pl
http://www.se.cuhk.edu.hk/~mcchau3/cgi-bin/express.html
http://www.webserve.com/gateways/figletgateway.pl
[Shimrod, Veronica Karlsson]
If Figlet doesn't produce the kind of results you want, THEN you can post to
alt.ascii-art with your request. Make sure that you include:
the fact that you have already tried Figlet, or don't have access to it
(otherwise you will probably just get told to use it)
a description of the kind of lettering you want, along with any other symbols
or logos which you would like incorporated into it.
8. Can I post to ask for an ASCII art picture?
Yes, if we find it interesting. Give your request the subject `REQ: xyz' if
you're looking for a picture of an xyz, then in the message describe more
exactly what you're looking for. Generally, the more specific you are, the more
likely you are to get someone to draw what you want: if you just say something
like `can someone draw me a fish' then you're not likely to get many replies,
because people won't be sure whether or not they're wasting their time by
drawing something you won't want. If you don't have Web access, mention this
fact, otherwise you may get replies consisting only of URLs for the kind of
pictures you're looking for.
9. How do I get an existing picture converted to ASCII art?
There are computer programs available which convert graphics files of a
particular format (usually GIF) to ASCII art. They go by names such as ascgif,
gifa, gifscii, and gif2ascii. Do a Web search for any of these programs to find
places where you can download them. Try:
gopher://twinbrook.cis.uab.edu/1A/atools.70
ftp://ftp.wwa.com/pub/Scarecrow/Gifscii/
However, the output from these programs is often poor (fiddling with the picture
in an image-editing program beforehand may help). In this case, you can post a
request to alt.ascii-art asking for someone to `asciify' it, but PLEASE DON'T
POST THE PICTURE ITSELF. To save downloading time for people reading the
messages, if possible give the URL (Web address) of the picture instead.
If you saw the picture on a Web page, you can find out its URL by right-clicking
on it (on the Macintosh, right-clicking, Ctrl-clicking, or holding down the
mouse button) and selecting `Open this image' (or its equivalent for your Web
browser), then copy the URL from the Location bar to your news program (make
sure you copy it exactly).
If the picture is not on a Web site anywhere, put it up on your own site (if you
have one), or get a friend to put it up on their site, and post the URL to
alt.ascii-art. If you can't do this, post your request to alt.ascii-art and wait
for an artist to reply, then e-mail the picture to them.
10. Can I post or use other people's ASCII art?
Don't assume that if somebody posts something to a Usenet group, that gives you
the right to use it however you like; copyright laws still apply. For more
information, see the article `Copyright Myths FAQ: 10 big myths about copyright
explained' in news.announce.newusers. (It is also available at
http://www.clari.net/brad/copymyths.html.)
ASCII art is often an exception to this rule, though: generally, ASCII artists
don't mind if you copy their pictures and repost them or put them on your own
Web site, as long as you don't make any money out of them. There are a few
important conditions, however.
If the picture contains a few letters in one corner which don't seem to be
part of the picture, they're the artist's initials. DO NOT remove these
initials -- would you cut away the part of a Van Gogh painting containing his
name? Leaving the initials on is a small price to pay for being able to use
the picture for free.
If you're going to use a picture in your signature file, or in a place (such
as a log-in screen) which means you're going to be using it a lot, you should
really e-mail the artist (or post to the newsgroup, if you don't know their
address) and ask for permission, because otherwise people may get the mistaken
impression that you were the one who drew the picture.
As for posting other people's ASCII art, after a discussion in alt.ascii-art the
following rules were agreed upon:
If an ASCII ART picture has initials on it, leave them on when posting it.
If an ASCII ART picture doesn't have initials on it, mention that you didn't
draw it when posting it.
If somebody posts a picture without initials and you have an original copy
with initials, feel free to repost the original version. The repost ought not
to be taken personally, as we all know that ASCII art often loses proper
credits. Responses to the repost are not necessary.
[Donovan]
11. What should I know about signature files?
A signature file (or `sig' for short; not to be confused with the initials added
to an ASCII picture) is a small, personalized text file which an e-mail or news
program adds to the end of every message a person sends -- the equivalent of a
letterhead for dead-tree (paper) mail. Usually it contains little more than the
person's name, organization, and e-mail address, and an inspirational quote of
some sort; but some people like to incorporate ASCII art into their signature
files as well.
The biggest problem that this causes is the number of lines that the signature
file takes up. This is a topic which, despite its lack of importance in relation
to global warming, violence in society, and so on, can be the subject of heated
arguments. To be brief, (almost) no-one will complain if your signature file is
four lines long or fewer -- and it is quite possible to draw good ASCII pictures
which are that small. Some examples are at:
http://wwwtios.cs.utwente.nl/~kenter/sigs.html
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/7373/sigs.htm
Some e-mail programs don't allow you to have a signature file which is longer
than four lines, while others just complain. Five or six lines is usually
acceptable, but any longer, and you're starting to take the risk that your
signature will be longer than some of your e-mail messages; this wouldn't really
make sense on paper, so it isn't really acceptable in cyberspace either. The
exception is in messages posted to alt.ascii-art itself -- we're used to seeing
long sigs, so we won't complain.
But no matter what the length of your signature, make sure it's fewer than 72
characters wide, otherwise it may end up a horrible mess [see Question 6].
12. Where can I find more ASCII art?
Lots of ASCII artists put up libraries of their own and others' ASCII art on
their Web sites, as well as tutorials on how to draw ASCII art. Allen Mullen has
links to many of these sites at http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/2695/links.htm.
Yahoo also has a page dedicated to ASCII art, at
http://www.yahoo.com/Arts/Visual_Arts/Computer_Generated/ASCII_Art/. And try
Joan Stark's Web site: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/7373/.
To find out how to animate ASCII art using JavaScript, see
http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/Marina/4942/faq_hta.htm and
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Studios/9334/animlesson.htm.
THE END
This document may be freely copied as long as Matthew Thomas is identified as
the original author.
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