Supriya Ghosh (Editor)

FIGlet

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Stable release
  
2.2.5 / May 2012

Operating system
  
Unix-like

Written in
  
C

Original author(s)
  
Glenn Chappell, Ian Chai

Initial release
  
1991 (as "newban") / 1993 (figlet 2.0)

Repository
  
ftp.figlet.org/pub/figlet/

FIGlet is a computer program that generates text banners, in a variety of typefaces, composed of letters made up of conglomerations of smaller ASCII characters (see ASCII art). The name derives from "Frank, Ian and Glenn's letters".

Contents

Being free software, FIGlet is commonly included as part of many Unix-like operating systems (Linux, 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). There are third-party reimplementations of FIGlet in Java (including one embedded in the JavE ASCII art editor), JavaScript, PHP and Python. FIGlet was featured as a Debian Package of the Day in 2007.

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. (You can download font files here)
  • -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.

    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

    The -ct options centers the text and makes it take up the full width of the terminal. The -f roman option specifies the 'roman' font file.

    FIGlet based ASCII typefaces

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

    TOIlet seeks to extend FIGlet to use colour text. FIGlet supports TOIlet fonts as of version 2.2.4.

    References

    FIGlet Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA