What command prints a string as "big ascii text art" in bash?

Question

I'm looking for a program that turns an ASCII string into something like the "ascii art" below:

    .-"^`\                                        /`^"-.
  .'   ___\                                      /___   `.
 /    /.---.                                    .---.\    \
|    //     '-.  ___________________________ .-'     \\    |
|   ;|         \/--------------------------//         |;   |
\   ||       |\_)          Red Hat         (_/|       ||   /
 \  | \  . \ ;  |     Enterprise Linux     || ; / .  / |  /
  '\_\ \\ \ \ \ |                          ||/ / / // /_/'
        \\ \ \ \|    Server Release 5.3    |/ / / //
         `'-\_\_\     Codename Tikanga     /_/_/-'`
                '--------------------------'

I don't have a matching example but I would like the string be turned into some multi line text, like:

 __    __
/  |  /  |
|  |  |  |
|  |--|  |
|  |--|  |
|  |  |  | 
|_/   |_/

for the letter H and so on... I would like to use this to show certain warning messages, for example when the user is about to run a script that will delete the production database and so on...

Thanks!

score 80 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 11 '09 at 14:38

80

$ figlet you want figlet
                                         _      __ _       _      _   
 _   _  ___  _   _  __      ____ _ _ __ | |_   / _(_) __ _| | ___| |_ 
| | | |/ _ \| | | | \ \ /\ / / _` | '_ \| __| | |_| |/ _` | |/ _ \ __|
| |_| | (_) | |_| |  \ V  V / (_| | | | | |_  |  _| | (_| | |  __/ |_ 
 \__, |\___/ \__,_|   \_/\_/ \__,_|_| |_|\__| |_| |_|\__, |_|\___|\__|
 |___/                                               |___/

answered Dec 11 '09 at 14:38

jeff

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+1 - Oh, how I love figlet. Proportional fonts SUCK... – Evan Anderson Dec 11 '09 at 15:00
3

There's a web front end for figlet at: http://www.bigtext.org/ – gm3dmo Dec 21 '09 at 20:27
1

bigtext.org seems to be no more – Des Horsley Feb 07 '18 at 03:31
2

this works on osx using homebrew too! `brew install figlet` – Brad Parks Jul 30 '18 at 16:52
i purposely logged in just to upvote this!!!!! – Peter Teoh Mar 14 '21 at 06:21

David Mackintosh · Answer 2 · 2009-12-11T16:16:08.750

There's also the old-school command "banner". It is crude but effective.

$ banner banner

######      #     #     #  #     #  #######  ######
#     #    # #    ##    #  ##    #  #        #     #
#     #   #   #   # #   #  # #   #  #        #     #
######   #     #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #####    ######
#     #  #######  #   # #  #   # #  #        #   #
#     #  #     #  #    ##  #    ##  #        #    #
######   #     #  #     #  #     #  #######  #     #

A bit of googling showed me that rpmfind knows where to find it (although rpmfind appears to be having problems themselves these days...)

score 5 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 10 '16 at 10:12

cowsay

$ cowsay cowsay makes banners
 ______________________
< cowsay makes banners >
 ----------------------
        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

$ cowsay -f tux cowsay is customisable
 ________________________
< cowsay is customisable >
 ------------------------
   \
    \
        .--.
       |o_o |
       |:_/ |
      //   \ \
     (|     | )
    /'\_   _/`\
    \___)=(___/

cowsay is amusingly '90s and provides a bunch of options for tweaking the cow's appearance. Read man cowsay.

It's still packaged for Ubuntu and Debian: sudo apt install cowsay

If you would like the man page to be read by a cow, check `man cowsay | cowsay` — nathanfranke, Sep 16 '20 at 10:40

score 4 · Answer 4 · edited Aug 05 '13 at 10:55

Toilet is even better. ;) I always used it as code banner for my applications

  ▞▀▖         ▐     ▜  ▙▗▌      ▗▐         
  ▌  ▙▀▖▌ ▌▞▀▘▜▀ ▝▀▖▐  ▌▘▌▞▀▖▛▀▖▄▜▀ ▞▀▖▙▀▖ 
  ▌ ▖▌  ▚▄▌▝▀▖▐ ▖▞▀▌▐  ▌ ▌▌ ▌▌ ▌▐▐ ▖▌ ▌▌   
  ▝▀ ▘  ▗▄▘▀▀  ▀ ▝▀▘ ▘ ▘ ▘▝▀ ▘ ▘▀▘▀ ▝▀ ▘

There's a pretty good write-up of how to use it over on cyberciti.biz, titled: UNIX / Linux: Display Large Colourful Text Banner On Screen

score 4 · Answer 5 · answered Dec 11 '09 at 14:40

4

Figlet can do that, and is in the Ubuntu Repos sudo apt-get install figlet:

"Using Figlet to Spice Up your Scripts" is a recent Linux Journal Article on the Topic.

answered Dec 11 '09 at 14:40

Kyle Brandt

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Too sloooow :-) – Kyle Brandt Dec 11 '09 at 14:40
3

Maybe just too small? – chris Dec 11 '09 at 14:44

score 3 · Answer 6 · answered Dec 11 '09 at 16:19

3

It is likely that your first example was created using boxes.

answered Dec 11 '09 at 16:19

Dennis Williamson

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What command prints a string as "big ascii text art" in bash?

6 Answers6