TAAG now has full support for TheDraw font files, color and all.

A little over 12 years ago, someone sent me a zip of old ANSI art fonts. I converted a handful of them to FIGlet fonts (basically the ones that didn’t use color), and added them into TAAG. I have always wanted to revisit the format though, as there were so many fonts created for it, and earlier this year I decided to go back and properly add support for it. 

TheDraw?

TheDraw was a 1980s DOS app for creating ANSI art. ANSI art is ASCII art’s more handsome sibling: an extended 256-character set instead of ASCII’s 128, plus 16 colors. Users made text art fonts for it the same way people would later make ASCII art fonts for FIGlet.

TheDraw’s font format had the advantage of color and more characters, but it was less sophisticated, with hard limits baked in (fonts couldn’t exceed 12 characters in height, for one). Kerning is the clearest example. FIGlet’s rules let a designer decide exactly how letters smush into each other, so the output gels. TheDraw has nothing like that. And once Unicode showed up in the ’90s, FIGlet fonts pulled ahead on character coverage.

So neither format wins outright. They’re different tools from different eras.

TAAG update

I silently made the first update for this several months ago, adding the new fonts to the drop-down list but not to the Test All page. Then in May I added them to the Test All page. I haven’t heard a peep from people who use the app, but hopefully these new fonts provide some enjoyment.

I know it seems really late for me to do a write-up on this, and I’d meant to post a blog or make a video sooner, but life has been crazy (though then again, when is life not crazy?). Additionally, videos kind of need a story, and I couldn’t figure out how to frame this one.

Also updated

The AOL macro fonts in TAAG are fixed. You can now see them again in their full ’90s glory. That’s a longer story for another day though.

Also, the Arial ASCII Art Gallery has gotten some major updates and will be getting more in the near future, but again, a story for another time.