ANSI art editor in the browser
Draw ANSI art like back then.
No DOSBox, nothing to install.
WAnsiDraw is a free editor for pictures made of text characters. You draw with blocks, lines and 16 colors, with the keyboard like in TheDraw or with a mouse and a pen, and save real .ans files for BBSes and archives.
Free, no sign up. Your pictures stay in your browser.
Drawing needs a computer or a tablet. On a phone only a viewer opens.
What is it for?
ANSI art is pictures made of the 256 characters of the IBM PC with 16 colors: blocks, shades, lines. On the bulletin board systems of the 80s and 90s such pictures greeted every caller, and artists still draw them today, for BBSes, archives like 16colo.rs and just for fun.
The well known programs for it run under DOS or have to be installed. WAnsiDraw opens in your browser and you start right away. What comes out is a real .ans file with SAUCE info that any terminal shows, or a PNG, a GIF and a link to share.
Made for
- Sysops
- who need welcome and menu screens for their board.
- ANSI artists
- who want to work without an emulator, from any computer.
- The curious
- who want to try how pictures are made of text characters.
What it can do
Everything you know from TheDraw, and a few things that did not exist back then.
Keyboard like in TheDraw
Ten character sets on F1 to F10, lines with the arrow keys, insert and overwrite.
Half block brush
Paint like in a paint program, with twice the resolution in height. The editor picks characters and colors itself.
Shading and gradients
A brush that gets denser step by step, and gradients made of ░ ▒ ▓ █.
Frames that join up
Corners, junctions and crossings fit by themselves, also with the keyboard.
Big text with TheDraw fonts
Load your own .tdf files or build fonts in the built-in font editor.
Selections with a magic wand
Add and take away areas, copy, mirror, move.
Convert pictures
Photos and logos become ANSI art made of half blocks or shades.
Several drawings
Up to nine pictures in tabs, with an overview of large canvases.
As in the BBS
The picture builds up at modem speed, as a preview, a GIF or a video.
Share as a link
The whole drawing is inside the link. Nothing is uploaded.
All the formats that matter
.ans, .bin, .xb, .pcb, .avt and .asc with SAUCE, plus PNG. iCE colors, 9 dot mode, VGA, EGA and Amiga fonts.
On a tablet
Draw with a finger or a pen, zoom with two fingers.
For sysops
WAnsiDraw belongs to WebCarrier BBS, bulletin board software that runs as a website. The Templates menu has ready screens for welcome, logon, logoff and new users, with the macros of the board like @BBSNAME@ and @USER@.
Design it, save it as .ans, upload it to your board. That is all.
A little history
In the early 90s groups like ACiD and iCE drew their pictures in TheDraw, character by character, for boards you called with a modem. Welcome screens turned into an art form of its own that is still alive. WAnsiDraw brings the tool for it into the browser.
Computers and tablets, not phones
ANSI art needs room: 80 columns with characters you can clearly see. That is why the editor runs where there is enough screen.
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Computer Yes
With keyboard and mouse, the full editor, in any current browser.
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Tablet Yes
The editor with a touch bar. One finger paints, two fingers zoom, a pen paints precisely.
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Phone View only
Too small to draw. You get a viewer: open pictures, look at them, save them as PNG or GIF.
The canvas is free.
No account, no installing, no upload. Your drawing stays in your browser until you save it.
Start the editor