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Answers to frequently asked questions in the ASCII art Usenet groups
- news:alt.ascii-art
- news:alt.ascii-art.animation
- news: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:news.announce.newusers before posting to any Usenet groups.
This FAQ is regularly posted to news:alt.ascii-art and
news: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 news: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 news:alt.test,
news:misc.test, and many other `test' groups are for).
There are three ASCII art Usenet groups. news:alt.ascii-art is
the main group, where most of the discussion takes place.
news:rec.arts.ascii is a `best-of' group, for posting the best
ASCII art from news: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
news: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
news:rec.arts.ascii, e-mail your message to the moderator, Don
Bertino: bertino-@-netcom-.-com (remove the dashes first).
news: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:
| | / ,' ,-' _,-'
| .' / ,'