Figlet is a computer program that generates text banners, in a variety of fonts, comprised of letters made up of conglomerations of smaller ASCII characters (see ASCII Art).
History
According to the man page, figlet stands for 'Frank, Ian and Glenn's LETters after the creators, Glenn Chappell (who was the main programmer) and Ian Chai , and Frank, whose .sig (email signature) inspired the program. The fonts for the program were inspired by various UseNet articles and signatures.
Behaviour
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.
- -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.
__ ___ _ _ _ _ _
\ \ / (_) | _(_)_ __ ___ __| (_) / \
\ \ /\ / /| | |/ / | '_ \ / _ \/ _` | | / _ \
\ V V / | | <| | |_) | __/ (_| | |/ ___ \
\_/\_/ |_|_|\_\_| .__/ \___|\__,_|_/_/ \_\
|_|
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.
External links
