Image to ASCII
Turn any photo into ASCII text art. Everything runs in your browser — your images are never uploaded anywhere.
Drop an image here, or click to browse
PNG, JPG, GIF or WebP — processed in your browser only
Privacy note: your image never leaves your device. All processing happens locally in your browser — nothing is uploaded to a server.
How it works
When you choose a picture, it is scaled down to the width you pick — anywhere from 40 to 160 characters. Every pixel of the small version is measured for brightness, and that brightness is matched to a character from a fixed ramp, from dense symbols like @ and % for dark areas to open ones like . and a space for bright areas. Dark parts of your photo become heavy characters and light parts stay open, which is how the picture reappears as text.
All of this happens locally on your device. The image is drawn to an off-screen canvas, its pixels are read by your own browser, and no file is ever sent to a server — so it is safe to convert personal photos too.
Want words instead of pictures? Try the ASCII Art Generator for big banner-style text, or explore more tools on the FontStyler homepage.