Crafting Striking Terminal Text with FIGlet

Introduction

FIGlet is a utility for creating large characters out of ordinary screen characters. It's often used in terminal sessions to create eye-catching text, banners, or headers. This project will guide you through the process of using it to generate text, and customizing your output with different fonts.

Skills Graph

Create Large Letters

To use figlet, open the terminal ( ① or ② in the figure ) in the environment and simply type figlet followed by the text you want to display::

figlet Hello World

This command display "Hello World" in large letters.

Changing Fonts

To use a specific font, use the -f option followed by the font name:

figlet -f slant Hello World

output:

    __  __     ____         _       __           __    __
   / / / /__  / / /___     | |     / /___  _____/ /___/ /
  / /_/ / _ \/ / / __ \    | | /| / / __ \/ ___/ / __  /
 / __  /  __/ / / /_/ /    | |/ |/ / /_/ / /  / / /_/ /
/_/ /_/\___/_/_/\____/     |__/|__/\____/_/  /_/\__,_/

figlet comes with a variety of fonts. To list all available fonts:

showfigfonts

output:

banner :

######    ###   ##    ## ##    ## ####### ###### ##    ##  ##  ##  ###   ## ###   ## ##      ##    ## ######  ##    ## ## ##  ## ## ##  ## ######  ##    ## ##    ## ####### ##  ## ## ##  ## ## ##      ###### ##    ## ##    ## ##   ### ##   ### ##      ##   ## ######  ##    ## ##    ## ##    ## ####### ##    ## 


big :
 _     _
| |   (_)
| |__  _  __ _
| '_ \| |/ _` |
| |_) | | (_| |
|_.__/|_|\__, |
          __/ |
         |___/


block :

_|        _|                      _|
_|_|_|    _|    _|_|      _|_|_|  _|  _|
_|    _|  _|  _|    _|  _|        _|_|
_|    _|  _|  _|    _|  _|        _|  _|
_|_|_|    _|    _|_|      _|_|_|  _|    _|

...

Adjusting Width

To make figlet fit the text into a specific width, use the -w option:

figlet -w 80 Hello World

This command will ensure the output fits within 80 columns.

output:

 _   _      _ _        __        __         _     _
| | | | ___| | | ___   \ \      / /__  _ __| | __| |
| |_| |/ _ \ | |/ _ \   \ \ /\ / / _ \| '__| |/ _` |
|  _  |  __/ | | (_) |   \ V  V / (_) | |  | | (_| |
|_| |_|\___|_|_|\___/     \_/\_/ \___/|_|  |_|\__,_|

Centering Text

To center the figlet output in your terminal, use the -c option:

figlet -c Hello World

output:

               _   _      _ _        __        __         _     _
              | | | | ___| | | ___   \ \      / /__  _ __| | __| |
              | |_| |/ _ \ | |/ _ \   \ \ /\ / / _ \| '__| |/ _` |
              |  _  |  __/ | | (_) |   \ V  V / (_) | |  | | (_| |
              |_| |_|\___|_|_|\___/     \_/\_/ \___/|_|  |_|\__,_|

Using figlet for Terminal Banners

You can add figlet commands to your .bashrc or .zshrc file to display a banner each time you open a terminal:

echo "figlet -f slant 'Welcome to Labex!'" >> ~/.bashrc

Summary

FIGlet is a fun and simple way to add large text banners to your terminal sessions. Whether you're spicing up your script outputs, creating headers for your terminal-based presentations, or just having fun with terminal customization, FIGlet provides an easy-to-use interface for big, bold text. Experiment with different fonts and options to find your favorite style.