8 Best Free ASCII Art Generator Software For Windows

Here is a list of best free ASCII art generator software for Windows. These software are used to generate ASCII art that consists of various alphabets, numbers, special characters, etc. Most software either take text or image as input and produce similarly looking ASCII art. Few ASCII generators also let you generate ASCII art from scratch by providing tools like brush, freehand, line, curve, etc. Customization is another aspect of these ASCII art generators as you can customize art resolution, color (black & white and colored), font, font size, etc.

To import an image, these software are quite flexible in terms of image formats as they support multiple image formats like JPG, PNG, BMP, JPEG, etc. After generating ASCII art, you can save it in various formats like JPG, GIF, XHTML, PDF, TXT, etc.

Overall, all software are easy to use and you can easily generate ASCII art through these software.

My Favorite ASCII Art Generator Software For Windows:

ASCII Generator is my favorite software because it can convert single as well as multiple images into ASCII art at a time. Plus, it can generate ASCII art in both black & white and colored formats.

You can also check out lists of best free Drawing Software and QR Code Generator software for Windows.

ASCII Generator

ASCII Generator is a free ASCII art generator software for Windows. It is used to convert an image into a text-based ASCII art image. Not just a single file, you can convert multiple images into ASCII arts through its batch conversion feature. By default, it uses random text, number, special characters etc, to make a text-based image. But to edit text, go to Edit > Ramps > Valid Characters and set any particular text that you want in the output file.

One handy feature of this software is that it can generate colored ASCII art that makes output art much more similar to input image than its black & white version. You can preview both colored and black and white art before saving. After the preview, you can save the image in XHTML and PDF file formats.

This freeware is also equipped with various editing tools that you can use to customize the art. Some of the handy editing tools are size (to change output file resolution), Fonts (to change fonts of text), Invert the output (to invert colors of output file), etc.  Some common tools to rotate image, flip vertically, flip horizontally, etc., are also available.

ASCII Art Studio

ASCII Art Studio is a free ASCII art generator software for Windows. Using this software, you can make ASCII art from scratch using various available tools. Here, you also get a separate image to ASCII art converter to convert an image into an ASCII art.

To make ASCII art from scratch, this software provides various tools like freehand, brush, line, curve, rectangle, ellipse, etc. Only in brush tool, you get the option to choose any text to make the art. In all other tools, you get predefined set of texts to make the ASCII art. All the tools are mainly operated using the mouse that makes art making process easier. You can save your art in GIF file format.

In order to convert an image into ASCII art, firstly, go to file and select convert picture to ASCII art option. Now, browse an image and set its width and press OK to view the ASCII art on the interface. After that, edit the art using various art-making tools or save the art in PDF or GIF file formats.

In this software, you can draw or convert an image into black & white ASCII art only, which is the only drawback of this software.

JavE

JavE is a free ASCII editor software for Windows. In this software, you can make freestyle ASCII art using the mouse, and also convert an image into the ASCII art. It is similar to Paint program, where you get a lot of tools to create and edit art.

To draw ASCII art, you can use tools like freehand generic, freehand algorithm, and brush. Both freehand generic and algorithm work like a pencil tool; you can select different texts for these tools. Through brush tool, you can draw up to sixteen different texts at a time. Besides main freehand drawing tools, some other handy tools like clone tool, freehand selection, rectangle generic, ellipse generic, etc., are also available. If you further want to modify the freehand art, then use menus like modify, view, and edit. These three menus contain many tools that you might need to modify or enhance ASCII art.

To convert an image to ASCII art, this software provides a dedicated tool named image to ASCII converter that you can access from the tools menu. In this tool, just enter an image to automatically get the ASCII art. Here, you don’t get the option to set custom text, but you can choose which text you don’t want in the ASCII art. To change the density of text in the art, you can vary parameters including highlights, shadows, gamma, and sharpen. All changes in ASCII art can be viewed in real time. Batch conversion and art resizing tools can also be found this section.

Freestyle ASCII art can be saved in TXT format, while image ASCII art can be saved in JPG file format.

Alternates ASCII Artist

Alternates ASCII Artist is a free and open source ASCII art generator software for Windows. With the help of this software, you can convert any picture into an ASCII art. It can generate both colored and black & white ASCII art. In black and white ASCII art, this freeware uses limited alphabets and special characters such as #, R, P, $, *,+, etc. However, the colored image only uses various shades of multiplication signs (*) to generate the colored image. In input, you can give images of various file formats like PNG, JPEG, BMP, GIF, etc.

In this freeware, you also get some filter presets along with a filter slider to vary the intensity of texts used in the ASCII art. If you choose median or upper intensity cut off filter, then the output art would be made of tightly packed texts. However, use of lower intensity cutoff filter makes output art less congested, as art would contain much fewer texts than other filter configurations.

This ASCII art generator has one more section named Convert to vary the output art size. To vary art size, you can either enter pixel width and height value or enter height and width values in percentage. Once finished, press the Plain text convert button to get the black & white art or press HTML convert button to get colored art. As the name implies, Plain text convert gives output file of TXT format, while HTML convert provides a file of HTML format.

retyper

retyper is a simple java based ASCII art generator software for Windows. This software helps you convert an image into an ASCII art. You can generate colored as well as black & white ASCII art through this software. According to your choice, you can select different character sets and numbers that you want in the output ASCII art. Various types of fonts and option to vary font size are also available on the interface.

To generate the ASCII art, this software uses M-Rules and Noise algorithms. There is a small outright difference between the two algorithms: M-Rules mostly uses alphabets to generate the art whereas Noise algorithm mainly uses numbers to do the same. Inbuilt file compressor is another useful feature using which you can compress the art before saving it. Don’t compress the image too much because compression deteriorates the quality of art. Once done, preview the image by pressing the convert image button.

As input, this freeware supports image formats like JPG, GIF, BMP, PNG, and more. But, the output ASCII art can only be saved in few formats, namely, TXT, HTML, ANSI, JPEG, and GIF format.

Textaizer Pro+

Textaizer Pro+ is another free ASCII art generator software for Windows. Like other software, this also lets you convert an image into a colored or black & white ASCII art. Besides ASCII art, this freeware is also capable to generate word art, text mosaic, text art, crazy characters, and draw lines art from the input image. As input, you can insert images of various popular image formats such as BMP, JPEG, PNG, ICO, EMF, etc.

On its interface, you get separate preview windows for each type of supported art. Separate settings sections for each art type is also present on the left side of the interface. If you go to the ASCII art settings, then you will be able to vary the number of characters per line, font size, test coverage, text density mask, black & white art option, etc. Plus, additional tools settings are also present using which you can change text font, text color, background color, brightness, saturation, etc. After setting up the parameters, just press the start ASCII Art button to view art preview. Now, to save the art, go to its art section and save art in one of the various file formats namely, JPG, metafile (.emf), and PDF.

Note: In this free version, some of its advanced features will disable after a grace period of few days. To enjoy all of its features, you need to buy this software.

Image To Ascii Art Converter

Image To Ascii Art Converter is a free and portable ASCII art generator software for Windows. It uses an image as an input and converts it into an ASCII art. But, it only supports three image formats named BMP, JPG, and JPEG. By default, it uses a string of random texts in the ASCII art, but you can also set your own string from the set character string option. Besides this, you can resize the art by entering the X and Y scale values. Here, you do not have the option to preview the output art so first, save the art in TXT format and then view it.

This freeware does its job, but it also has some drawbacks such as only three supported input image formats, only one supported output format, and no preview window.

FIGlet and ASCII Art Generator

FIGlet and ASCII Art Generator is a free text to ASCII art generator software for Windows. It does not generate ASCII art from an input image, but converts input text into ASCII art form. In this software, you get various types of art fonts in font drop down menu such as alphabet, banner, alligator, calligraphy, etc. In total, you get 30 different art fonts in the font menu. You can further add more fonts by using its load fonts option.

The whole process of generating the art is quite simple as you just need to enter the text in its text section to get ASCII art. ASCII art can be viewed in real time in the preview section. After the preview, just save the output art in TXT file format.