ASCII Banner Generator

About this tool

ASCII art banners turn plain text into large letters drawn with ordinary keyboard characters. They are a staple of README files, terminal output, command-line tool headers, server login messages and plain-text decorations. ASCII Banner Generator draws each letter of your text as a 5-row block glyph made of # characters, with two spaces between letters. It has one built-in block font covering A-Z and 0-9; lowercase input is converted to uppercase, and any other character is drawn as a small # box with the character in its middle. Trailing spaces are trimmed from every line, so the output pastes cleanly into a README code block, a shell script comment or a message of the day file. The banner is plain monospace text, not an image, and it is generated in your browser.

Why use it

• Bold Block Letters: Each character becomes a 5-row glyph drawn with #, which stays readable in terminals and code blocks.

• README & MOTD Ready: Output is plain monospace text that renders in GitHub READMEs, terminal MOTDs, and shell script headers.

• No Image Files Required: Pure text characters — no PNG, SVG, or image upload needed. Renders correctly in any environment that displays text.

• Clean Copy: Trailing spaces are trimmed from each line, so pasted banners don't leave stray whitespace in your files.

• Lightweight & Fast: Runs entirely in the browser with no library download delay — banners generate in milliseconds.

How to use

1. Type a word or short phrase into the Text field (up to 80 characters).
2. Click Generate or press Enter to draw the banner.
3. Check the width in the Banner output box; each character adds 7 columns.
4. Click Copy output to copy the banner to your clipboard.
5. Paste it into your README, script comment or text file, or click Clear to start again.

When it helps

• When adding a project name header to a GitHub README to make it visually distinctive.
• When creating a server message of the day (MOTD) for a Linux server or container.
• When adding a banner comment at the top of a shell script or configuration file.
• When building a retro-style CLI tool that needs a styled startup header.
• When creating a decorative section divider in a plain-text document.
• When generating ASCII art text for a creative project, zine, or text-based game.

Examples

HELLO

#   #  #####  #      #       ###
#   #  #      #      #      #   #
#####  ####   #      #      #   #
#   #  #      #      #      #   #
#   #  #####  #####  #####   ###

hi!

#   #  #####  #####
#   #    #    # ! #
#####    #    # ? #
#   #    #    # ! #
#   #  #####  #####

OK 2

 ###   #   #          ###
#   #  #  #          #   #
#   #  ###              #
#   #  #  #            #
 ###   #   #         #####

Tips

• Keep banner text to 11 characters or fewer so the output stays within 80 columns in standard terminals.
• Stick to letters, digits and spaces; punctuation is drawn as a boxed placeholder rather than a real glyph.
• For shell script headers, wrap the banner in a comment block (# or //) to prevent the shell from interpreting it as commands.
• Test your banner in a GitHub README preview before publishing — wrap it in ``` so GitHub renders it in a monospace code block.

Frequently Asked Questions

Glossary

ASCII art

Visual art created using the 95 printable ASCII characters to form images, patterns, and large letters in a text-only medium.

FIGlet

A program and font format for generating ASCII text banners. FIGlet fonts define the multi-row character glyphs used to render each letter.

MOTD (Message of the Day)

A message displayed to users when they log in to a Unix/Linux system, often styled with an ASCII banner showing the server name or welcome text.

Monospace font

A typeface where every character occupies the same horizontal width, essential for ASCII art to render with correct alignment.

Glyph

The visual representation of a single character in a font. ASCII art fonts define multi-row text glyphs using printable characters.

Banner comment

A large decorative comment at the top of a source code file, typically an ASCII art rendering of the project or file name.