About figlet (Frank, Ian & Glenn's Letters) release 2.1.1, 28 Apr 1995
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Note: figlet 2.1.1 is a minor revision of figlet 2.1. The files
FTP-NOTE, README, chkfont.c, figlet.c, figlist and showfigfonts have
been changed. All other files are identical with the 2.1 release.
For those making figlet 2.1.1 available by anonymous FTP: please put
the version number (2.1.1) in the filename, so that FTP'ers can know
they're not getting the same program they already have.
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figlet is a program that creates large characters out of ordinary
screen characters
_ _ _ _ _ _
| (_) | _____ | |_| |__ (_)___
| | | |/ / _ \ | __| '_ \| / __|
| | | < __/ | |_| | | | \__ \_
|_|_|_|\_\___| \__|_| |_|_|___(_)
(This is meant to be viewed in a monospaced font.) figlet can create
characters in many different styles and can kern and "smush" these
characters together in various ways. figlet output is generally
reminiscent of the sort of "signatures" many people like to put at the
end of e-mail and UseNet messages.
If you like figlet (hey, even if you hate figlet), please send an
e-mail message to <figlet@uiuc.edu>.
What's New in figlet 2.1
------------------------
(If you are new to figlet, you may want to skip this section.)
- Bug Fixes
A number of minor bugs and major incompatibility problems have been
fixed. figlet 2.1 should compile correctly on many operating systems for
which figlet 2.0 did not.
- "-F" removed
The "-F" command line option, which used to list all the available
fonts, has been removed, since it made figlet incompatible with some
operating systems. It has been replaced by the "figlist" script. The
"showfigfonts" script has been updated so that it no longer requires
the "-F" option to be available.
- Extended character set
The figlet font file format has been extended to allow an arbitrarily
large number of characters. The ISO Latin-1 character set, which
includes many accented letters and special symbols, has been added to
most standard fonts.
- Right-to-left printing
figlet can now print right-to-left. This can be specified on the
command line ("-R") or in the font file. Thus, for example, Hebrew and
Arabic fonts can be handled more easily.
- Right-justified text
figlet can now right justify its output. This is the default when
right-to-left printing is selected. It can also be specified on the
command line ("-r").
- Control files
figlet now supports "control files". These can be used to change which
character figlet will print when it sees a certain input character --
sort of an expanded version of the "-D" option. For example, a control
file could convert lower-case letters to upper-case or map certain
ASCII characters to accented letters. Control file names end with the
suffix ".flc". Select a control file by using "-C controlfile" on the
command line. Several controlfiles can be used at once by giving
muliple "-C" options.
- Utility Interface
There is now a way for programs that use figlet to get various
information from figlet, for example, what version of figlet is being
used or the name of the default font directory. This information is
gotten through the "-I" option. See the man page for details.
Other Fonts, Mailing List & Web Page
------------------------------------
A good number of figlet fonts have been developed, most of which are
not included in the standard figlet package. Many of these can be
obtained by anonymous FTP from ftp.nicoh.com in the directory
"pub/figlet/fonts". Some non-Roman fonts are available at the FTP
site. As of this writing, we have Hebrew, Cyrillic (Russian) and
Greek.
We run an e-mail list dedicated to figlet software and font
announcements, as well as general discussion about figlet. If you
would like to be on this list, send e-mail to listserv@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu
with the message body
subscribe figlet-l YOUR NAME
where YOUR NAME should be replaced with your name. For those who don't
want to be bothered with the discussions, the list can be configured so
that you only see software update notices, or only software and font
announcements.
We also maintain a "Figlet Home Page" on the Worldwide Web. The URL is
http://www.math.uiuc.edu/~chappell/figlet
Files
-----
README -- This file.
figlet.c -- The figlet source code.
Makefile -- The figlet makefile. Used by the make command.
figlet.6 -- The figlet man(ual) page.
figlet.6.txt -- The figlet man(ual) page pre-baked with nroff.
figlist -- Script that lists available fonts and control files.
showfigfonts -- Script that gives a sample of each available font.
chkfont.c -- Source code for chkfont: a program that checks figlet
fonts for formatting errors. You can ignore this file
unless you intend to design or edit fonts.
fonts -- Directory containing fonts and control files.
<xxx>.flf -- All files ending in ".flf" are figlet font files.
<xxx>.flc -- All files ending in ".flc" are figlet control files.
Installing figlet
-----------------
First decide in which directories figlet and the figlet font files
(the ".flf" files) will be stored (we recommend "/usr/games" and
"/usr/games/lib/figlet.dir", respectively) and which will be the
default font (we recommend "standard.flf").
Edit "Makefile", and set the variables DEFAULTFONTDIR and
DEFAULTFONTFILE to the appropriate values. Set DEFAULTFONTDIR to be
the full pathname of the directory in which you will keep the figlet
font files. Set DEFAULTFONTFILE to be the filename of the default
font.
At this point, you have 2 choices:
(1) Just compile figlet. To go this, go into the directory containing
the figlet source, and type "make figlet". Then copy the various files
to the proper locations. The executable (figlet), along with figlist
and showfigfonts, goes wherever you keep your executables. The fonts
(<xxx>.flf) and control files (<xxx>.flc) go in the default font
directory. The man page (figlet.6) goes in section 6 (usually
/usr/man/man6). If you cannot, or do not want to, install the man page,
you can probably still read it using
nroff -man figlet.6 | more
(2) Do a complete installation. To do the this, set the variables
DESTDIR and MANDIR in Makefile to the appropriate values. DESTDIR
should be the full pathname of the directory in which the executable
files should be put (we recommend "/usr/games"); MANDIR should be the
full pathname of the directory in which the figlet man page should be
put, generally "/usr/man/man6". Once DEFAULTFONTDIR, DEFAULTFONTFILE,
DESTDIR and MANDIR have been set, in the directory containing the figlet
source, type "make install".
If space is a problem, the only files you absolutely must have to run
figlet are "figlet" (the executable) and at least one font (preferably
the one you chose to be the default font).
Using figlet
------------
(Note: figlet needs a good thorough tutorial. Currently I don't have
the time to write one, but if anyone wants to do so, go right ahead.
I'd be glad to help out a little. Write us at <figlet@uiuc.edu> if
you're interested. -GGC-)
At the shell prompt, type "figlet". Then type, say, "Hello, world!"
and press return. "Hello, world!" in nice, big, designer characters
should appear on your screen. If you chose standard.flf to be the
default font, you should see
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
| | | | ___| | | ___ __ _____ _ __| | __| | |
| |_| |/ _ \ | |/ _ \ \ \ /\ / / _ \| '__| |/ _` | |
| _ | __/ | | (_) | \ V V / (_) | | | | (_| |_|
|_| |_|\___|_|_|\___( ) \_/\_/ \___/|_| |_|\__,_(_)
|/
Then type something else, or type an EOF (typically control-D) to quit
figlet.
Now you can send the output of figlet to a file (e.g., "figlet > file")
and e-mail it to your friends (who will probably say, "Wow! It must
have taken you hours to put that together!")
To use other fonts, use the "-f" command line option. For example, if
you had said "figlet -f smslant" above, you would have seen
__ __ ____ __ ____
/ // /__ / / /__ _ _____ ____/ /__/ / /
/ _ / -_) / / _ \_ | |/|/ / _ \/ __/ / _ /_/
/_//_/\__/_/_/\___( ) |__,__/\___/_/ /_/\_,_(_)
|/
Here are some other useful command line options:
-c center -- centers the output of figlet.
-m0 (that's a zero) tells figlet to kern characters without smushing
them together.
-t terminal -- figlet asks your terminal how wide it is, and uses
this to determine when to break lines. Normally, figlet assumes
80 columns so that people with wide terminals won't annoy the
people they e-mail figlet output to.
-p paragraph mode -- eliminates some spurious line breaks when piping
a multi-line file through figlet.
-v version -- prints information about your copy of figlet.
For in-depth explanations of these and other options, see the man page.
Other Stuff
-----------
figlet is available for operating systems other than Unix. E-mail us
for more information.
Although you don't have to design your own fonts to use figlet, we'd
certainly like it if lots of people did make up new figlet fonts. If
you feel like giving it a try, see the "FONT FILE FORMAT" section of
the man page. If you do design a font, please let us know!
See "Other Things to Try" in the EXAMPLES section of the man page
for... well... other things to try.
Authors
-------
figlet was written mostly by Glenn Chappell <ggc@uiuc.edu>. The author
not being an e-mail fanatic, most correspondence (bug reports, rave
reviews, etc.) should be directed to his secretary (who is definitely
an e-mail fanatic), Ian Chai <spectre@uiuc.edu>.
Source
Documentation
Reference
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