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Image Tools

Image to ASCII Art Converter - Turn Photos into Text

Drop in an image and it becomes ASCII art, with each brightness level mapped to a character. Switch the character set, width, and color mode and watch it update live.

Drop an image here or select a file

Supported: JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, BMP

ASCII Art

Upload an image and the ASCII art will appear here.

Why ASCII art still matters

ASCII art redraws a picture with characters. It started in 1970s email and bulletin boards and still turns up in terminal splash screens, game titles, social posts, and README banners. Because it needs nothing but a font, it works anywhere an image cannot be uploaded, which is why it has never really gone away.

This tool draws your image onto a canvas, measures the brightness of each region, and maps it to the matching character. The default ramp runs from a blank for dark areas to @ for bright ones, which produces a smooth gradient. Switch to block shades, Korean jamo, or katakana and the mood shifts completely. A width slider sets the resolution, color mode paints each character with its original pixel color, and invert plus background let you flip the tone. The whole conversion runs in your browser, so the image never leaves your device.

Who gets the most out of it

  • Developers and DevOps engineers — building banners for terminals and CLI tools
  • Designers and illustrators — when retro text art is the right look
  • Content creators — leaving a visual mark on boards that block image uploads
  • Students and hobbyists — seeing how ASCII art actually works under the hood

Character sets at a glance

  • Default — a staircase from a blank to @ (think " .:-=+*#%@"). The most traditional and portable option.
  • Block — Unicode block characters like " ░▒▓█" that fill in density, almost like a grayscale photo.
  • Korean Jamo — Hangul letters from ㄱ to ㅎ and ㅏ to ㅑ ordered by brightness. A look you rarely find elsewhere.
  • Katakana — half-width katakana from ｱ onward. Pairs well with Japanese retro culture.

Frequently asked questions

No. The image is read with the browser FileReader and processed on a canvas. The entire conversion stays on your device, and nothing is transmitted to or stored on a server. That makes it safe to use with sensitive photos or pictures of faces.

Characters are taller than they are wide, so mapping pixels one-to-one stretches the image vertically. This tool samples every other row to keep the ratio close to square. If it still feels off, shrink the font size or increase the width.

With color mode on, each character is painted with the original color of its pixel. The character itself is still chosen by brightness, so the effect looks like color laid over a grayscale ASCII drawing. Turn it off and everything renders in a single white or black tone.

Yes. The Download PNG button redraws the current ASCII art onto a canvas and saves it as a PNG file. The Copy Text button puts the plain text on the clipboard so you can paste it straight into a chat or a forum.

Images with strong contrast and clear outlines work best. Illustrations, logos, comic characters, and high-contrast black-and-white photos come out sharper than busy backgrounds or scenes where the tones are all similar. If the shape is hard to read, try raising the contrast in your source image first.

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