Many of you, myself included, have run into pretty interesting jpgs or gifs created using pure ASCII text. I have always wondered if there was a free and easy way for me to create my own ASCII text without losing my mind completely and attempting it “by hand”.
Well, when wondering the ether recently I discovered a free program called “pic2ascii”. Information on the program and its creator:

During my first complete run of this program, I used the following scooter graphic as a target.

I simply clicked ASCII-Table in the top bar and chose “fill with all possible characters”. This loaded the ASCII information I needed to complete this process. I also saved that table as a text file (option available through the ASCII-Table drop down).
Next I browsed to my target graphic and chose the preferred font for this run.
Click START and wait for the pop-up box stating the process is complete!
Pic2ASCII rendered the following ASCII image relatively quickly.

The ASCII image the program rendered was quite large so I decided to decrease the size of the target scooter graphic. This rendered a slightly more manageable output. See below.

Now, being relatively excited about ASCII rendering, I decided to take it up a notch and find a program which would do this in color. I came across the free ZW Text Mosaic program.
Once installed, I decided to demo the program with the same scooter graphic used previously.
Using the same picture but rendering it with ZW Text Mosaic

In addition to the color option, you can actually type in text you wish to use during the rendering process. Of course, I used she-geeks.com as my text.
Once the image has been generated, you can choose either Show or Open to view the graphic.
All in all, these programs are straightforward enough that anyone can have a bit of fun using them. Get creative and enjoy! J