How to turn an image into ASCII art
- Drop a picture on the box above, or tap to choose one.
- Set the width in characters. 60–100 suits chat messages and code comments; 150 or more gives fine detail for posters.
- Pick a character set: Standard is clean and readable, Detailed has 70 brightness levels, Blocks look like shaded pixels.
- Use Contrast to make the subject stand out, and Invert if you will paste it on a dark background such as a terminal.
- Copy the text, download it as a .txt file, or save a PNG image. Tick Color for colored characters.
How it works
The image is scaled down so each character covers a small block of pixels. The brightness of each block picks a character: dark areas get dense characters like @ and #, light areas get sparse ones like . or a space. Because characters are about twice as tall as they are wide, the image is squashed vertically by half so the proportions look right in a monospaced font.
Photos with a clear subject and a plain background convert best. Portraits, logos and high-contrast silhouettes work well; busy landscapes turn into noise at small widths. Increasing contrast often helps more than adding characters.
Conversion happens in your browser; the image is never uploaded.
Why does my ASCII art look stretched when I paste it?
It must be shown in a monospaced font such as Courier, Consolas or Menlo. In proportional fonts the columns no longer line up. In chat apps, wrap it in a code block.
What width should I use for Discord or Slack?
Around 40–60 characters fits a chat window and stays under message length limits. Use a code block (three backticks) so it keeps its shape.
Can I keep the colors?
Yes. Tick Color to see colored characters and to save a colored PNG. Plain text cannot store color, so the .txt download is always monochrome.