Image to ASCII art
Draw a picture with text characters. Your photo never leaves your device.
- Your text is never uploaded
- Processed on your device
- Works offline
- Free, no sign-up
Empty
Result updates as you type
The result appears here as soon as you type or open a file.
Settings
How it works
Open a picture
Open any photo or screenshot. Its text portrait appears at once.
Tune the look
Change the width, the character set and inversion until the preview reads well.
Copy or download
Copy the art into comments, banners and signatures, or save it as text.
How ASCII portraits work
Each block of the picture is replaced by the character whose darkness matches it: dense characters like @ for shadows, light ones like . for highlights. Classic letters suit code comments, block shades suit big posters, and the detailed set keeps faces recognisable.
Text characters are taller than they are wide, so the picture is squeezed vertically to keep proportions true. Bold high-contrast photos with a clear subject read best; busy low-contrast shots turn to mush.
Getting a good likeness
Start at 80 characters wide and go wider for detail or narrower for chat messages. Inversion flips the mapping for dark text on light backgrounds, which is how most editors and terminals display it.
View the result in a monospace font — every line assumes equal character widths. Proportional fonts shear the picture sideways and ruin the effect.
Drawn privately in the tab
Your photo is measured and redrawn as characters by this page alone, with no round trip to any service. Portraits of people and private screenshots are therefore safe to convert here.
No likeness is stored or learned from. Close the tab and the artwork remains only where you copied or saved it.
Questions
Is my photo uploaded?
No. The art is drawn inside your browser. Your photo never leaves your device.
Why does the art look stretched?
You are viewing it in a proportional font. Switch to a monospace font, where every character has the same width, and the proportions snap back.
Which character set should I pick?
Classic letters for code comments and chats, block shades for a poster feel, and the detailed set for the closest likeness of faces.
Is it free?
Yes. Free to use, with no sign-up, no watermark and no daily limits.
Related tools
More free tools that run on your device. No uploads