X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: fbb9d,8e787ae1c2a1df23,start X-Google-Attributes: gidfbb9d,public From: none-set <73250.2773@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Info: Figlet Date: 1995/07/09 Message-ID: <3tpi52$qns@miso.wwa.com> X-Deja-AN: 105897637 approved: boba@wwa.com sender: boba@miso.wwa.com organization: none-set newsgroups: rec.arts.ascii Bryan, hope this helps -- it's all I've got. ---------------------------- About figlet (Frank, Ian & Glenn's Letters) release 2.0, August 9, 1993 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- figlet is a program that creates large characters out of ordinary screen characters. figlet can create characters in many different styles and can "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. Some example figlet output is given below. If you like figlet (hey, even if you _hate_ figlet), please send an e-mail message to spectre@uiuc.edu or figlet@uiuc.edu. [Note: Apple IIGS GNO users having no "C" compiler can contact Jawaid Bazyar at for a pre-compiled GNO version of 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. .flf -- All files ending in ".flf" are figlet font files. Installing figlet ----------------- First decide in which directories figlet, and the figlet font files (the ".flf" files) will be stored (usually "/usr/games" and "/usr/games/lib/figlet.dir") and which will be the default font (we recommend "standard.flf"). Edit "Makefile", and set the variables DEFAULTFONTDIR, DEFAULTFONTFILE and OLD_DIR_STRUCTS 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. OLD_DIR_STRUCTS should normally be 0. Then, in the directory with the figlet source in it, type "make install". If the program fails to compile, set OLD_DIR_STRUCTS to 1 in Makefile, and type "make install" again. (Setting OLD_DIR_STRUCTS to 1 makes figlet use an older method of reading directories. On newer systems, this method will often compile without errors, but will not run properly, so OLD_DIR_STRUCTS should only be set to 1 if figlet will not compile otherwise.) If you cannot, or do not want to install the man pages, you can still probably read it using nroff -man figlet.6 | more and you should not use "make install" but just "make" and then copy the files manually. 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). We have successfully compliled figlet on the following systems: Hardware Operating System Sun SPARC SunOS V4.1.3 SGI Iris 4D/25GT IRIX V4.0.5 SGI Iris 4D/340VGX IRIX V4.0.5 SGI Iris Skywriter IRIX V4.0.5 Cray 2 UNICOS V6.1 Cray Y-MP UNICOS V6.1 Sequent S81 DYNIX V3.1.1 Convex C240 ConvexOS V10.1 IBM RS/6000 AIX V3 HP 9000/375 HP-UX V7.0 NeXT Mach NeXTstep V3.0 Using figlet ------------ 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 / (_) | | | | (_| |_| |_| |_|\___|_|_|\___( ) \_/\_/ \___/|_| |_|\__,_(_) |/ (By the way, the above is meant to be diplayed in a monospaced font.) 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. -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. -D Deutsch -- switches to the German character set. Turns `[', `\' and `]' to umlauted A, O and U, respectively. `{', `|' and `}' turn into the respective lower case versions of these. `~' turns into s-z. -p paragraph mode -- eliminates some spurious line breaks when piping a multi-line file through figlet. -F Fonts -- lists the available figlet fonts. -v version -- prints information about your copy of figlet. For in-depth explanations of these and other otions, see the man page. Other Stuff ----------- 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. 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 . 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 (or figlet@uiuc.edu).