Editing ASCII art (section)

{{short description|Computer art form using text characters}}
{{redirect|Text Art|the art form also known as "text art"|Word art}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2021|cs1-dates=y}}

[[File:Fish-shell-logo-ascii-black.svg|thumb|ASCII art of a fish]]
'''ASCII art''' is a [[graphic design]] technique that uses [[computer]]s for presentation and consists of pictures pieced together from the 95 printable (from a total of 128) [[character (computing)|characters]] defined by the [[ASCII]] Standard from 1963 and ASCII compliant character sets with proprietary extended characters (beyond the 128 characters of standard 7-bit ASCII<!-- leave it as 7-bit for accuracy -->). The term is also loosely used to refer to [[#Other text-based visual art|text-based visual art in general]]. ASCII art can be created with any [[text editor]], and is often used with [[free-form language]]s. Most examples of ASCII [[art]] require a [[Monospaced font|fixed-width font]] (non-proportional [[typeface|fonts]], as on a traditional [[typewriter]]) such as [[Courier (typeface)|Courier]] or [[Consolas]] for presentation.

Among the oldest known examples of ASCII art are the
creations by computer-art pioneer [[Kenneth Knowlton]] from around 1966, who was working for [[Bell Labs]] at the time.<ref name="cgihist">
{{cite web |last=Carlson |first=Wayne E. |date=2003 |title=An Historical Timeline of Computer Graphics and Animation|url=http://design.osu.edu/carlson/history/timeline.html#1960 |url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080310082944/http://design.osu.edu/carlson/history/timeline.html#1960|archive-date=10 March 2008 |access-date=5 March 2008 |website=Department of Design - The Ohio State University}}
</ref> "Studies in Perception I" by Knowlton and [[Leon Harmon]] from 1966 shows some examples of their early ASCII art.<ref name="sip1">{{Harvnb|Carlson|2003}} "1966 Studies in Perception I by Ken Knowlton and Leon Harmon (Bell Labs)", [http://design.osu.edu/carlson/history/tree/images/bell.jpg Image of Studies in Perception I]{{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304134227/http://design.osu.edu/carlson/history/tree/images/bell.jpg |date=4 March 2016}}</ref>

ASCII art was invented, in large part, because early printers often lacked graphics ability and thus, characters were used in place of graphic marks. Also, to mark divisions between different print jobs from different users, bulk printers often used ASCII art to print large [[banner page]]s, making the division easier to spot so that the results could be more easily separated by a computer operator or clerk.<ref name="Moritsugu2000">{{cite book |last1=Moritsugu |first1=Steve |title=Practical UNIX |date=2000 |publisher=Que Publishing |isbn=9780789722508 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/practicalunix00mori_1/page/220 220]–221 |url=https://archive.org/details/practicalunix00mori_1 |url-access=registration |quote=banner. |language=en}}</ref> ASCII art was also used in early e-mail when images could not be embedded.