figlet

ASCII art text banner generator

TLDR

Create ASCII art text

$ figlet "[Hello World]"

Use specific font

$ figlet -f [slant] "[text]"

Center output

$ figlet -c "[text]"

Set width

$ figlet -w [80] "[text]"

Preview all available fonts

$ showfigfonts

figlet renders text as large ASCII art characters using various fonts. It's commonly used for terminal banners, welcome messages, and stylized text output.Multiple fonts provide different styles from simple block letters to elaborate designs. The tool adjusts character spacing (smushing) to create compact or spread-out output.figlet reads from standard input if no message is provided, enabling piped input.

PARAMETERS

MESSAGE

Text to render as ASCII art.

-f FONT

Font file to use.

-w WIDTH

Output width.

-c

Center output.

-l

Left justify.

-r

Right justify.

-k

Kerning mode.

-W

Full width (no smushing).

--help

Display help information.

INSTALL

sudo dnf install figlet

sudo pacman -S figlet

sudo apk add figlet

sudo zypper install figlet

brew install figlet

nix profile install nixpkgs#figlet

CAVEATS

Font availability varies by installation. Very long text may wrap awkwardly. Some fonts work better at certain terminal widths.

HISTORY

figlet (Frank, Ian & Glenn's Letters) was created in 1991 by Glenn Chappell and Ian Chai. It became a Unix classic for creating ASCII banners, spawning hundreds of community-created fonts.

RESOURCES

Homepage · Source code