All you need for ASCII art: Monospaced Fonts, Text Editors and ASCII Utils

     >-----------------------------------------------------<

   __  __                                                _
  |  \/  | ___  _ __   ___  ___ _ __   __ _  ___ ___  __| |
  | |\/| |/ _ \| '_ \ / _ \/ __| '_ \ / _` |/ __/ _ \/ _` |
  | |  | | (_) | | | | (_) \__ \ |_) | (_| | (_|  __/ (_| |
  |_|_ |_|\___/|_| |_|\___/|___/ .__/ \__,_|\___\___|\__,_|
   / _| ___  _ __ | |_ ___     |_|
  | |_ / _ \| '_ \| __/ __|
  |  _| (_) | | | | |_\__ \
  |_|  \___/|_| |_|\__|___/

Almost all ASCII art is created and intended to be viewed in a monospaced, or
fixed width font. Find your operating system/computer on the list below and find
a font on your system that is on the list.

Windows:  FixedSys               (Supplied with Windows)
          Courier New            (Supplied with Windows)
          Courier                (Supplied with Windows)
          Lucida Console         (Supplied with Microsoft Win95 Plus!)
          Topaz New
          Monotype.com
          Terminal
          Lucida Sans Typewiter
          OCR A Extended
          OCRB

Amiga:    Topaz                  (In ROM)
          Courier                (Supplied with WorkBench 2+)
          Pearl
          Siesta
          XEN                    (Comes with MagicWB)
          XCourier               (Comes with MagicWB)
          ascii
          tiny

AppleMac: Courier
          Monaco
          ZTerm

Acorn:    Corpus                 (in Resources)
          Homerton               (in Resources)
          System                 (in Resources)

If you can`t find any of the fonts on the list, please try looking at this in
all fonts available:

iiiii iiiii iiiii iiiii|
mmmmm mmmmm mmmmm mmmmm|

In a fixed width font, both of the | symbols should match in distance from the
left side of the screen. If you find a common font that isn`t on the list,
please email mar...@bigfoot.com and tell me about it, along with what
operating system/computer it is from.

.---- To get a Monospaced/Fixed Width font in MS Outlook Express -->
|Click Tools/ Options.
|Click the Read tab.
|Click the Fonts button.
|Select Courier or another proportional font for ALL of the listboxes.
|Select Smallest.
|Click OK.
|Click OK.
'------------------ (Thanks to aardvarko) ------------------------->

     >-----------------------------------------------------<

            _____         _
           |_   _|____  _| |_
             | |/ _ \ \/ / __|
             | |  __/>  <| |_
            _|_|\___/_/\_\\__|
           | ____|__| (_) |_ ___  _ __ ___
           |  _| / _` | | __/ _ \| '__/ __|
           | |__| (_| | | || (_) | |  \__ \
           |_____\__,_|_|\__\___/|_|  |___/

A lot of ASCII art is made in a text editor - usually like a wordprocessor but
without text formatting functions.

Unix:      vi
           pico
           emacs
           jed
           joe
           ed

Windows95: Notepad                            (Comes with Windows!)
           EDIT.COM                           (Comes with windows!)
           MicroEMACS
           EditPad
           PFE
           UltraEdit                            (www.ultraedit.com)
           TextPad                    (www.textpad.com - shareware)

Windows3:  Notepad                            (Comes with Windows!)
           MicroEMACS
           PFE
           UltraEdit                            (www.ultraedit.com)

MSDOS:     EDIT    (Comes with DOS 5/6 - Type EDIT at command line)
           QEdit
           MicroEmacs
           GNU Emacs
           TheDraw                                      (shareware)
           AcidDraw                                     (shareware)

Amiga:     Ed    (On Workbench Disk - run 'Ed <filename>' in shell)
           MicroEMACS      (Supplied with Workbench on Extras disk)
           Blacks Editor
           CygnusEd
           AZ
           NotePad            (included with Workbench 1.2 and 1.3)
           TED                 (Included with ACID Blitz Basic 2.1)
           SuperTED       (Included with Blitz Basic support suite)

AppleMac:  Nisus
           SimpleText                         (included with MacOS)
           TeachText                          (included with MacOS)
           Saint Edit                               (shareware $10)
           BBEdit  (commercial but free light version is available)
           Tex-Edit Plus                                (shareware)

Linux:     joe
           nedit

Acorn:     !Edit                                     (in Resources)

     >-----------------------------------------------------<
            _    ____   ____ ___ ___
           / \  / ___| / ___|_ _|_ _| _   _ _   _ _
          / _ \ \___ \| |    | | | | | | | | |_(_) |___
         / ___ \ ___) | |___ | | | | | | | | __| | / __|
        /_/   \_\____/ \____|___|___|| |_| | |_| | \__ \
         ---------------------------  \___/ \__|_|_|___/

Some utils to help with the creation of ASCIIArt:

* FIGlet
    This great program makes ascii 'banners' from text - the titles in
   these lists are a good example.
    A few examples:
               _____ ___ ____ _      _
              |  ___|_ _/ ___| | ___| |_
              | |_   | | |  _| |/ _ \ __|
              |  _|  | | |_| | |  __/ |_
              |_|   |___\____|_|\___|\__|

              88888888888 88   ,ad8888ba,  88
              88          88  d8"'    `"8b 88              ,d
              88          88 d8'           88              88
              88aaaaa     88 88            88  ,adPPYba, MM88MMM
              88"""""     88 88      88888 88 a8P_____88   88
              88          88 Y8,        88 88 8PP"""""""   88
              88          88  Y8a.    .a88 88 "8b,   ,aa   88,
              88          88   `"Y88888P"  88  `"Ybbd8"'   "Y888

              8"""" 8  8""""8
              8     8  8    " e     eeee eeeee
              8eeee 8e 8e     8     8      8
              88    88 88  ee 8e    8eee   8e
              88    88 88   8 88    88     88
              88    88 88eee8 88eee 88ee   88

    Various fonts are availiable (.flf files) and there are versions
   of FIGlet for almost any operating system and computer type:
       http://st-www.cs.uiuc.edu/users/chai/figlet.html
       ftp://nicoh.com/pub/figlet/

    The windows version of FIGlet, FigWin, is still only in beta and
   has a few bugs. Also, you dont always get the results you want
   without experimenting with the options first.  However it does
   have features not found in many other versions, like vertical
   smushing and weird line fitting.

    There are also many online, web based versions of FIGlet available
   also, one of which is http://www.surfplaza.com/figlet/

    If you are a DOS user, you can get a GUI for DOS FIGlet at:
       http://voices.vossnet.co.uk/a/atkins/fdg.htm
   which should make the running of FigDOS easier.

    If required, I will email FigDos and the GUI in one zip file -
   just email mar...@bigfoot.com and ask!

* GIFscii
    GIFscii, and it`s variants, will take an image file (usually GIF)
   and convert it to an ascii picture. The results arn`t brilliant,
   but can serve as a good starting point for an ASCII picture
    Do a web search for one of these, as they are everywhere.
   Versions are available for a wide variety of operating systems
   and computer types.

Try the following URLs for a starting point
     gopher://twinbrook.cis.uab.edu/1A/atools.70
     ftp://ftp.wwa.com/pub/Scarecrow/Gifscii/.
       [URLs taken from alt.ascii-art FAQ by Matthew Thomas]

           .- Sample output from BMP2ASC -----.
           |         ;$XXHXXXXXXX+.           |
           |      :XXXHHHHHXHHHHXXX$.         |
           |    /XXXXHHHXXHHHHHHHXXXH/        |
           |   /XXXXXHHH$HHHHHHHHHHHHH%       |
           |  .XXXXXXHHX$HHHHHHHHHHHHHH;      |
           |  ;XXXXXHX$XX$$$XHHHHHHHHXHX.     |
           | .$XXXH%/;;;::::;/$HHHHHHHXX;     |
           | =XXXHX//;;:::::;;/+HXHHHHHH$     |
           | /HXXH$//;;;;::::;;/$XHHHHHXX-    |
           | %HXXH%/;;;;;;;;+$$%$XHHHHHHX/    |
           | XXXXHX$X$%+//+++;$%HXHHHHHHX$.   |
           |.XXXXHX+/////://;///+$XHHH@HHHHH/.|
           |,X$XXHH%;;;;/;///;;;+$XHHH@HHHH@@@|
           |-X$XXH@H+/++/;/++;//%XHHHH@HHHH@@@|
           |=$$XXHHH@@%%$$%++++%$XXHHHHHXH@@@@|
           |=$$XXX$$@@@H%++++%%%$$XHXH@HH@@@@@|
           |=$XHXX%$@@@@@%+++%$%$$XXXHH$H@@@@@|
           |-+%XHHH@@@@@@@X+/+%$$$$$$%%/=$@@@@|
           | //XXXH@@@@@@@@@@@@X%%++///=--/H@@|
           |   %XXHH@@@@@@@@@@@@X+;/;;=-,,,-$@|
           |  =XHXHH@@@@@@@@@@@@X/,. ..-,..,,/|
           |  $H@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@XH;....,......|
           '------------------- for Windows! -'

* TheDraw
   TheDraw is primarily an ANSI editor, but is suitable for ASCII
   art also.  It features many features not availiable in most
   'standard' text editors, like filling an area with a character,
   or dragging a block around. There are many features specific
   to DOS ansi editing, which I will not go into here.

* AcidDraw
   AcidDraw is a similar program developed by artists for artists.
   A similar feel and feature set of TheDraw, but geared more
   towards a static-screen (non-animated) drawing.  It's sole
   purpose in life is to create ASCII and ANSI art.  Some nifty
   features include the ability to flip screens horizontally and
   vertically and otherwise manipulate text-based art in ways that
   a normal text-EDITOR simply can not do. Also shareware. (And the
   programmer is still alive but no bugs have ever been reported,
   to the fault of the software.)
      [Text supplied by RaD Man]

    Both TheDraw and ACiDDraw latest versions are available at
            http://artpacks.acid.org/programs/editors/

    Please note that none of these ASCII Utils are necesary for
         creation of ASCII Art, but merely to aid creation
      It is totally possible to make ASCII Art in any of the
               editors on the 'Text Editors' list.
    TheDraw and AcidDraw, however are editors in their own
       right, so could be used instead of a 'traditional'
                          text editor.

     >-----------------------------------------------------<

            .-----------------------------------------.
            |Compiled by Martin Atkins with help from:|
            | * Veronica Karlsson                     |
            | * Jorn Barger                           |
            | * Colin Douthwaite                      |
            | * Randy Gardner                         |
            | * Ilmari Karonen                        |
            | * aardvarko                             |
            | * gumby                                 |
            | * Valentin Valciu                       |
            | * Hayley Jane Wakenshaw                 |
            | * llizard                               |
            | * Sami Sihvonen                         |
            | * Doug Wilson                           |
            | * Brock Kevin Nambo                     |
            | * Cipher                                |
            | * Ben Norwood                           |
            | * Matthew Thomas                        |
            | * RaD Man                               |
            '-----------------------------------------'

     >------------- Last Updated 10-06-98 -----------------<


                Also available on the web at:
        http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/7373/minifaq.htm
        http://www.ludd.luth.se/users/vk/q/mga_faq.html