HandyjarFind a tool

Image to ASCII Art

Turn a local image into text, right in your browser.

Image and settings

Choose an image and make it your own.

No image selected.

JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF and other supported images.

Order characters from least to most ink. Spaces count. Custom ramps need at least two printable ASCII characters.

0.5 suits a character twice as tall as it is wide; 1 gives square cells. The preview uses a fixed monospace font.

1 keeps sampled tones; higher values separate light and dark, and 0 makes every cell midtone.

Composites transparent pixels before conversion. Preview is dark text on white.

Choose an image to begin.

Text preview

Your character grid will appear here.

Plain text, with spaces and line breaks preserved. Use a monospace font wherever you paste it.

How to use

  1. Choose an image from your device.
  2. Set the width, character ramp and proportions. Generate the text, then adjust and generate again to compare.
  3. Copy your text or download a .txt file. Preserve its spaces, line breaks and monospace font when sharing.

Files stay on your device.

Image decoding and text conversion run in your browser. This tool does not upload, log or store your image or filename. Reset clears the working result; downloads save only when you choose them.

Frequently asked questions

How are pixels turned into characters?

The image is divided into one cell per character. Every pixel is converted to brightness using sRGB channel weights (red 0.2126, green 0.7152, blue 0.0722), each cell takes the average brightness of the pixels it covers, and that average is matched to your character ramp. Dark areas use denser characters. Invert reverses that mapping. This is a visual conversion, not image description or text recognition.

How do width and character proportions work?

Width is the exact number of characters per row. Rows are rounded from image height ÷ image width × columns × character width/height, with at least one row. The default 0.5 compensates for tall characters. The preview has a fixed monospace font; adjust the ratio for the font in your destination. More columns retain finer detail but make a wider text file.

Which images can I open?

JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF and formats your browser decodes, with the site's local TIFF, AVIF and SVG decoders as needed. An animated or multipage input becomes a single still image. Unsupported or damaged files show an error. Color conversion can change wide-gamut or HDR tones. Source metadata and color are not part of the text output.

Can I customize the characters or background?

Standard and Detailed use ASCII characters. Blocks uses Unicode shade characters and is saved as UTF-8. A custom ramp accepts printable ASCII, including spaces, ordered from least to most ink. Its visual quality depends on your chosen order and font. Background selects white or black behind transparent pixels before sampling tones; it does not change the white preview surface. Use Invert for text intended for a dark terminal.

Is there a file or text size limit?

No imposed file-size or column cap. Your browser's Canvas, memory and text-rendering capabilities determine practical limits. Very wide grids can be costly to display. Cancel stops conversion; smaller column counts use less output memory. A resource failure shows an error so you can retry.

Related: Resize an image · Image to Base64.