VBScript version of Figlet

• Download source - 1.07 MB

Introduction

This program is a VBScript implementation of a popular freeware FIGlet. It is a program that generates text banners in a variety of typefaces comprised of letters made up of smaller ASCII characters.

Background

In Spring 1991 inspired by the e-mail signature of Frank Sheeran and goaded on by Ian Chai, Glenn Chappell wrote a nifty little 170-line 'C' program, which he called 'newban'. This very first version circulated around the net for a couple of years. It had one font, which included only lower-case letters.

In early 1993, Ian decided 'newban' was due for a few changes. And 7-months later they came up with a completely re-written version of having 888 lines of 'C' code. This was figlet 2.0, the first real release. It had 13 fonts.

Then came the new release figlet 2.1 immediately followed by 2.1.1. This last weighed in at 1314 lines, and had over 60 fonts.

Figlet Illustrations

So how does figlet look. Here are a couple of samples:

DOOM

  ______   _           _          _
 |  ____| (_)         | |        | |
 | |__     _    __ _  | |   ___  | |_
 |  __|   | |  / _` | | |  / _ \ | __|
 | |      | | | (_| | | | |  __/ | |_
 |_|      |_|  \__, | |_|  \___|  \__|
                __/ |
               |___/

LARRY3D

 ____                      ___               __
/\  _`\   __              /\_ \             /\ \__
\ \ \L\_\/\_\      __     \//\ \       __   \ \ ,_\
 \ \  _\/\/\ \   /'_ `\     \ \ \    /'__`\  \ \ \/
  \ \ \/  \ \ \ /\ \L\ \     \_\ \_ /\  __/   \ \ \_
   \ \_\   \ \_\\ \____ \    /\____\\ \____\   \ \__\
    \/_/    \/_/ \/___L\ \   \/____/ \/____/    \/__/
                   /\____/
                   \_/__/

Usage

To use this program all you need is Windows Scripting Runtime. I have tested and developed this version under 5.6. On the command prompt, you have to type the following command:

D:\TOOLS\FIGLET>cscript //Nologo Figlet.vbs /text:[TEXT] /font:[Figlet Font Name]

Where:

• [TEXT] - The text you want to convert
• [Figlet Font Name] - The name of the figlet font

The name of the figlet font is the name of the font file without '.flf' extension. You can find many fonts under the FONTS folder.

Notes

You need to run this program from the same folder in which Figlet.vbs file is present as the font files are loaded from the FONTS folder located under the same folder.

Limitations

1. It does not support the more advanced features like kerning or smushing.

References

1. Figlet home page
2. Figlet font specification

History

• 26^th November, 2008 - First release

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)