Text to ASCII Art

WHAT IT DOES

Text to ASCII Art transforms any text into eye-catching ASCII art using a variety of font styles. Choose from Block, Bubble, Smush, and Standard fonts—each creating a unique visual style. Customize the output with adjustable width, character spacing, and custom characters (e.g., using "#" instead of the default characters). A real-time preview shows your ASCII art as you type, and you can copy the result to your clipboard with one click. The tool supports all letters A-Z, numbers 0-9, and common punctuation.

WHERE IT RUNS

The extension runs entirely within your browser's local environment using the BotGentz framework. All ASCII art generation, font rendering, and text processing occur on your machine without any network requests. No text data, ASCII art, or user activity is ever transmitted, uploaded, or stored externally. The tool works on any website and respects the browser's security boundaries, operating within the isolated extension sandbox. ASCII art generation uses pre-defined character maps for each font style.

HOW TO USE

Click the extension toolbar icon to open the Text to ASCII Art panel. Enter text in the input area—the ASCII art preview appears automatically. The preview shows your text rendered in the selected font style. Click "Generate" to refresh the preview (or use auto-update). Click "Copy" to copy the ASCII art to your clipboard. Select a "Font" (Block, Bubble, Smush, or Standard) to change the visual style. Toggle "Use custom character" and enter a character to replace the default ASCII characters with your own symbol. Adjust the "Width multiplier" (1-4) to control the character width. Adjust the "Character spacing" (0-5) to control the gap between letters. The panel updates instantly when you change any setting.

THE ASCII ART GENERATION ENGINE — WHY IT WORKS

Most ASCII art tools rely on external libraries or online services. This tool uses a pure JavaScript approach with pre-defined character maps for each font style. Each character is defined as a 5-row grid where each cell is either a space or a printable character. The engine takes the input text, converts it to uppercase, and for each character, looks up its 5-row definition in the selected font. The rows are then concatenated horizontally with configurable spacing between characters. The custom character feature replaces all non-space characters in the art with the user's chosen symbol, while preserving the spacing. The width multiplier duplicates each character horizontally to create larger art. This approach provides fast, offline ASCII art generation with full control over the visual output.

THE PANEL

The Text to ASCII Art panel is fully draggable by its title bar and remembers its position on screen per website. It snaps to the edges of your browser window for clean alignment. Collapse the panel to a compact icon strip using the minimize button, restoring it with a single click. Resize the panel by dragging any edge or corner; the input area, preview, and controls adjust proportionally. Press the Escape key to close the panel instantly. The panel maintains independent state for each browser tab, allowing you to generate ASCII art in multiple tabs simultaneously.

PLEASE NOTE

This extension requires the free BotGentz extension framework to be installed and enabled. The tool supports uppercase letters A-Z, numbers 0-9, and common punctuation characters. Lowercase input is automatically converted to uppercase. The font maps are pre-defined and optimized for readability; some characters may not be available in all fonts. The custom character feature replaces all non-space characters; using a symbol like "#" creates a filled look, while "." creates a lighter look. All ASCII art data is processed locally and is never transmitted, logged, or shared. The extension requests no network permissions and functions entirely offline. The source code is fully auditable and available for review.