ASCII Art Library For Python

6.5 · active · verified Sun Apr 12

ART is a Python library for converting text to ASCII art and generating 1-line ASCII art. It's currently at version 6.5 and is actively maintained with frequent releases, adding new fonts and features, and dropping support for older Python versions.

Warnings

breaking Python 3.6 support has been dropped as of version 6.5. Ensure your environment uses Python 3.7 or newer. Earlier versions (v6.0) dropped Python 2.7 and 3.4.
Fix: Upgrade your Python interpreter to version 3.7 or higher.
breaking Version 6.3 introduced significant internal restructuring, renaming modules and core dictionaries. For example, `art_param` changed to `params`, the `art` module was split, and `text_dic1`, `art_dic`, `decor_dic` were renamed to `fonts1`, `arts`, and `decorations` respectively. Direct access to these internal structures will break.
Fix: Review release notes for v6.3 and update code paths or variable names if directly interacting with previously exposed internal modules or dictionaries.
gotcha Some terminal environments or fonts may not fully support all 1-line ASCII arts or complex multi-line art characters, leading to display issues or missing characters.
Fix: Test in your target environment. Consider using more universally supported fonts or simpler arts if broad compatibility is required. The library's output is string-based, so environment rendering is a factor.
gotcha When incorporating multiline ASCII art directly into Python code as f-strings or triple-quoted strings, be mindful of indentation. Python's indentation rules can introduce unwanted leading spaces to each line of the ASCII art, misaligning it in the output.
Fix: Place multiline strings at the beginning of the line, or use `textwrap.dedent()` to programmatically remove unwanted whitespace.
gotcha The `art()` and `text2art()` functions are strict about parameter types. For instance, `artname` must be a `str` and `number` must be an `int`. Providing incorrect types will raise an `artError`.
Fix: Always ensure function arguments match the expected data types (e.g., `art("coffee")`, `art("woman", number=2)`). Refer to the documentation for specific function signatures.

Install

pip install art Install with pip

Imports

text2art
```
from art import text2art
```
The primary functions like `text2art` are directly importable. While `from art import *` is often used in examples, explicit imports are generally recommended.
art
```
from art import art
```
The `art` function generates 1-line ASCII art and can be directly imported for clarity.

Quickstart

Demonstrates converting a string to multi-line ASCII art using a specified font and generating a random 1-line ASCII art.

from art import text2art
from art import art

# Convert text to ASCII art
ascii_text = text2art("Hello, World!", font="block")
print(ascii_text)

# Generate a 1-line ASCII art
one_line_art = art("coffee")
print(one_line_art)

# Example of using a non-default font for 1-line art (if supported)
# try:
#     fancy_art = art("random", font="hideki") # Note: 'random' often doesn't use font arg explicitly
#     print(fancy_art)
# except Exception as e:
#     print(f"Could not generate fancy art: {e}")

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