FIGlet is a computer program that generates text banners, in a variety of typefaces, comprised of letters made up of conglomerations of smaller ASCII characters (see ASCII art).

Being free software, FIGlet is commonly included as part of many Unix-like operating system (Linux^[1], BSD, etc.) distributions, but it has been ported to other platforms as well. The official FIGlet FTP site includes precompiled ports for the Acorn, Amiga, Apple II, Atari ST, BeOS, Macintosh, MS-DOS, NextStep, OS/2, and Windows platforms, as well as a reimplementation in Perl (Text::FIGlet).^[2] There are third-party reimplementations of FIGLet in Java^[3] (including one embedded in the JavE ASCII art editor), JavaScript^[4] and PHP^[5]. FIGlet was featured as a Debian Package of the Day in 2007.^[6]

Behavior

FIGlet can read from standard input or accept a message as part of the command line. It prints to standard output. Some common arguments (options) are:

• -f to select a font file.
• -d to change the directory for fonts.
• -c centers the output.
• -l left-aligns the output.
• -r right-aligns the output.
• -t sets the output width to the terminal width.
• -w specifies a custom output width.
• -k enables kerning, printing each letter of the message individually, instead of merged into the adjacent letters.

Sample usage

An example of output generated by FIGlet is shown below.

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

The following code:

figlet -ct -f roman Wikipedia

generates this output:

oooooo   oooooo     oooo  o8o  oooo         o8o                             .o8   o8o            
 `888.    `888.     .8'   `"'  `888         `"'                            "888   `"'            
  `888.   .8888.   .8'   oooo   888  oooo  oooo  oo.ooooo.   .ooooo.   .oooo888  oooo   .oooo.   
   `888  .8'`888. .8'    `888   888 .8P'   `888   888' `88b d88' `88b d88' `888  `888  `P  )88b  
    `888.8'  `888.8'      888   888888.     888   888   888 888ooo888 888   888   888   .oP"888  
     `888'    `888'       888   888 `88b.   888   888   888 888    .o 888   888   888  d8(  888  
      `8'      `8'       o888o o888o o888o o888o  888bod8P' `Y8bod8P' `Y8bod88P" o888o `Y888""8o 
                                                  888                                            
                                                 o888o                                           

FIGlet based ASCII typefaces

Eric Olson's 2002 FIG typeface family is a series of OpenType fonts similar to the output of FIGlet.

See also

• banner (Unix)
• JavE

References

1. ↑
2. ↑
3. ↑
4. ↑
5. ↑
6. ↑

External links

• FIGlet Homepage
• FIGfont Version 2 FIGfont and FIGdriver Standard
• The FIGlet Fonts Library
• Web Based FIGlet Front Ends

de:FIGlet-Font es:FIGlet it:FIGlet pl:FIGlet