FIGlet

A FIGlet font (also: FIGfont ) is a decorative font that is composed to represent letters and numbers from ASCII characters. FIGlet fonts are part of the ASCII art.

The term originally comes from a computer program called FIGlet (acronym for Frank, Ian and Glen 's letters ) that uses these fonts to create ASCII art.

Example

__________________________     ( ___ ) (__) / __ ) () ( ___ ) (__) / _ / __ ___ / / _      ) __ ) _) (_ ( ( _-. ) (__) __ ) ) (- / _ / _ \ / _ \ / __ /     (__) ( ____) \ ___ / ( ____) ( ____) (__) / _ / \ ___ / _ / / _ / \ __ / file Format

The file format for FIGlet fonts specified in FIGfont Version 2 FIGfont and FIGdriver standard. The fonts are stored in ASCII files with the file name extension flf. Its content consists of a header and a list of the individual characters. The header contains substantially formatting options, an indication of the size of the character set, and the dimensions of the character. It can also include free comments of the author. Optionally can be packed the contents of the file in ZIP format.

Formatting Rules

An essential aspect of FIGlet fonts are the formatting rules that are defined by specifying the number of values ​​in the header of the files. You determine how the individual characters behave when they are next to each other on or off. Apart from simple options such as " Full size " ( all characters are placed side by side without changing ), and " fitting " ( extra spaces between characters are removed) are, in particular the so-called " smushing - Rules". These rules can be defined, for example, that adjacent characters "/" and "\" into a single | may be fused " ".

Example:

______________ | ___ | _______________ | | _____ \ \ | ___ | ______________ | | _ | | _ / _ \ | ' __ | |' _ ` _ \ / _` | | __ | | _____ \ \ | | _ / _ \ | ' __ | ' _ `_ \ / _` | __ | | _ | | ( _) | | | | | | | | | | (_ | | | | _ | _____ / / | _ | ( _) | | | | | | | | (_ | | | _ | _ | \ ___ / | _ | | _ | | _ | | _ | \ __, _ | \ __ | / _ / | _ | \ ___ / | _ | | _ | | _ | | _ | \ __, _ | \ __ | Creating and Editing

There is little software that allows you to create and edit FIGlet fonts. Therefore FIGlet fonts are mostly created by hand. A particular difficulty is to define appropriate formatting rules. The free software includes a JavE FIGlet font export feature, which allows you to create the font files is somewhat relieved.