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Guide
About the Image to ASCII Art Converter
ASCII art represents a picture using nothing but text characters. Each character stands in for a small patch of the image: dense characters like @ and # stand in for dark areas, sparse ones like . and spaces for light areas.
This converter samples your image pixel by pixel, measures the brightness of each region, and picks the character that matches. Adjust the width and character set until it looks right, then copy it into a README, a terminal banner, a code comment, or a chat message.
Getting a good result
High-contrast images work best. Portraits, logos, and silhouettes convert beautifully; busy photos with lots of mid-tones turn to mush. Increasing the width adds detail but makes the output harder to fit on a screen — somewhere between 80 and 150 columns is usually the sweet spot.
Choosing a character set
- Standard — a compact ramp; the safest general-purpose choice.
- Detailed — around 70 characters for the smoothest tonal gradient.
- Blocks — Unicode block characters that look almost like a real image.
- Binary — just 1s and 0s, for that classic hacker aesthetic.
Why invert exists
The default mapping assumes dark text on a light background. If you're pasting into a dark terminal or a dark-themed README, turn on Invert so the brightness relationship flips and the picture reads correctly instead of looking like a negative.
How to use it
- 1Drop in an image — high contrast gives the clearest result.
- 2Adjust the width to trade detail against size.
- 3Try different character sets, and invert for dark backgrounds.
- 4Copy the text or download it as a .txt file.
Frequently asked questions
What kind of image works best?
High-contrast images with a clear subject — portraits, logos, silhouettes. Busy photos with many mid-tones tend to look muddy as ASCII.
Why does the preview look so small?
The output is displayed at a tiny font size so the whole image fits on screen. Copy it into a monospace editor or terminal to see it at full size.
Why is my art stretched or squashed?
Text characters are taller than they are wide, so the tool halves the row count to compensate. It only looks right in a monospace font — proportional fonts will distort it.
When should I use invert?
Use it when pasting onto a dark background, like a terminal or dark-mode README, so light and dark map the right way round.
Is my image uploaded?
No. The image is read with the Canvas API in your browser and never sent to a server.