How can I make ascii-banners from the command line?
I've always preferred figlet
for big writing. Something about it preserves the character shape better. A bit subjective but there you go. Simple enough:
$ sudo apt-get install figlet
$ figlet oh hai!
_ _ _ _
___ | |__ | |__ __ _(_) |
/ _ \| '_ \ | '_ \ / _` | | |
| (_) | | | | | | | | (_| | |_|
\___/|_| |_| |_| |_|\__,_|_(_)
(It looks better in a terminal than it does here)
There are a ton of formatting options too that make it suitable for lots of different situations. It does this through "fonts" (standard
, slant
, shadow
, small
, smslant
, bubble
, digital
, mini
, etc). man figlet
has a full listing of available styles and formatting options but here are a few examples:
$ figlet -f slant Hooah!
__ __ __ __
/ / / /___ ____ ____ _/ /_ / /
/ /_/ / __ \/ __ \/ __ `/ __ \/ /
/ __ / /_/ / /_/ / /_/ / / / /_/
/_/ /_/\____/\____/\__,_/_/ /_(_)
$ figlet -f smslant Hooah!
__ __ __ __
/ // /__ ___ ___ _/ / / /
/ _ / _ \/ _ \/ _ `/ _ \/_/
/_//_/\___/\___/\_,_/_//_(_)
$ figlet -f bubble Hooah!
_ _ _ _ _ _
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \
( H | o | o | a | h | ! )
\_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/
$ figlet -f mini Hooah!
|_| _ _ _.|_ |
| |(_)(_)(_|| |o
You need to install it before you can use it. Type in the terminal:
sudo apt-get install sysvbanner
This Package is not available in the standard installation and for this is why you have to install it manually.