What this is: An online text conversion tool for changing ASCII text into ASCII pictures. The output can be used to decorate emails, online profiles, IMs, video game walkthroughs, geek t-shirts, text drawings, text links, text reminders, text readers, text messaging type stuff, banner art, code comments, etc etc - basically, whatever you can think of. These are just some ideas.
How to use: Unlike most text conversion software, instead of two steps (entering text and hitting a button), here all you have to do is enter text into the textbox in the top panel and your output will be generated as you type.
Contact:
FIGlet Fonts
In the early 90's, a group of people came up with the idea of creating ASCII Art text. They created a standard font format for the art and a program that would allow you to create your own fonts and type in other people's fonts. The phenomena spread and 100's of people created ASCII Art FIGlet fonts. These fonts make up the bulk of the fonts you see in this program. They are created with monospaced text, and they should look good in any font size.
AOL Macro Fonts
In the late 90's, programs known as "proggies" became popular in the underground warez scene of AOL. As these programs became more popular, many began to feature "Macro Shops", which were ASCII Art development areas. The user could develop their own ASCII Art and then scroll the text in an AOL chat room. Most "Macro Shops" included a feature that allowed the user to type in large ASCII Art text. These fonts had no connection to FIGlet fonts, and since they were developed for AOL, they were made to look good in point size 10 of the Arial font (which AOL used at the time). This was a non-monospaced environment, so these fonts were harder to create and they do not look good in anything outside that point size and font. They also may appear different on different computers.