I found a blog posting ASCII art in small text files, cleanly. Quite a nice achievement. I took a look at the code and copied it, but it did not work the same way for me. So, I am looking into it. There may be more to the code than shows on the blog post HTML code. Or, I will see if I can find a way to post a plain text file embedded in the post.

Which image shows the ASCII art better? One is a screen capture of ASCII art I posted as text to a blog. To display it as text rather than an image file (png, jpg or gif) I have to be satisfied with those lines running through it and the gaps too. I don’t like it, but so far it’s the best solution I have found to the problem of displaying text in an HTML world. I prefer using screen capture to display the ASCII art so it can show as I created it, in the text file.

Likely this is getting confusing for anyone who has not had the problem of making ASCII art work to be shown on the Internet.

I used to post ASCII art to HubPages and other online sites. I seldom do now because several people were leaving comments about the images being posted as an image file instead of as a text file (which they could grab with cut and paste – using without permission or assuming ASCII art is all free to take).

Well, I had set it up to display as an image gallery, just like photos, paintings and so on. The artist does not bring paint cans to the gallery and try to recreate all his or her work for the display. I see the ASCII art the same way.

Mainly, it is very difficult to get the ASCII art to display in plain text. Each site uses different software, HTML code and fonts. Every time I want to post ASCII art as text I would have to figure out how it will work on each individual site and sections on the site itself could be different. I did find some things which worked, sort of.

For blogs I found a plugin which displays the text in the right format but, it leaves it choppy looking, with bare lines between. I don’t like the look of it – but it is the best I have found so far. I’m still using it on this blog and my other blogs if I post a few ASCII art pictures I find on the web.

At this point I am done with trying to post text files anywhere online but in an actual text file which can be a clickable link from the HTML web page. Keep it simple.

If people want to complain they can go ahead and do so. But, no one should complain without offering me a solution to the problem of posting text in an HTML environment. If you don’t have a real solution, you should not complain about the solution I have found.

Not everyone tinkers with HTML any more. If you have and know what the alt image tags are (and where they are) you could give this a try. It’s not so practical now that almost no one uses a text based web browser. In the early days of the Internet a text based browser was practical because there were few images and if you stuck with text only web surfing you could be much faster in the days of dial up modems.

As you can see below the code is basic HTML for adding an image with the addition of the alt attribute to describe the image. This alt tag is still practical for people who concern themselves with SEO. Mainly it is good for keeping your site accessible for those who are vision impaired and have technology which will read those image tags but be unable to describe the image unless the tag exists to be read.

To do this, have your ASCII art ready. Create an ASCII image to go with the graphical image you are using.

In your HTML code include the entire <IMG> tag inside <PRE>…</PRE> tags, and put the ASCII art inside the ALT attribute. (See the image below which I recreated and then cut and pasted from the site where I found this idea.)

With this code a text only web browser would pick up only the image text and thus show your ASCII art picture. The ASCII art picture would not benefit the vision impaired web reader/ browser. So it is a good idea to add a word to describe your image along with the ASCII art picture.

Do not add text before or after the image itself. It will work as part of the image. Keep it all between the quote marks and the PRE tags (which tell the web browser this is pre-formatted information which should be kept “as is” with line breaks and spaces).

You can see an example of chain letter (chain mail) which uses ASCII art to illustrate and attract attention to it. I’ve seen others which use ASCII art angels and a large face with open arms on either side.

I’m not a fan of chain mail, even those which appear to be nice on the surface. How well meaning can they be when they are still based on telling people what they will or will not get if they do or do not send the chain letter to someone else. Often a lot of other people. Don’t consider yourself expected to send this to anyone.

I haven’t thought about ASCII art text images being used for passwords in a long time. I remembered the idea when I read a post written by hackers who were trying to create software which would crack ASCII art passwords based on repeated characters.

ASCII art as a password is pretty unique still. Don’t worry too much about hackers cracking your password. Just make your ASCII art a bit more complicated, using more variety in the characters you choose and include numbers and letters too. Of course, the ASCII has to be one line too.

Think of it as a good reason to work on creating new one line ASCII art.