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toilet: Text-based ASCII art

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Crafting Beautiful ASCII Art with the Linux 'toilet' Command

In the realm of Linux, there's no shortage of quirky and useful tools that can make your terminal experience more lively. One such tool that stands out for its creativity and fun is 'toilet'. The 'toilet' command in Linux generates text-based ASCII art, much like the well-known 'figlet'. However, 'toilet' extends 'figlet''s functionality, providing additional features such as unicode support and color output, making your terminal splashed with stylized and colorful text outputs. In this blog post, we’ll dive into what 'toilet' can do and provide detailed installation instructions across popular Linux distributions.

What is 'toilet'?

Toilet stands for "The Other Implementation's letters", escalating the fun factor in your terminal by transforming ordinary text into artistic banners. It supports various character fonts through TOIlet’s own .tlf files, as well as FIGlet’s .flf files. Moreover, it allows for multicolumn Unicode characters, and it can produce output in HTML and SVG format, besides standard terminal output formats.

Features

  • Multi-column Unicode support: This feature makes 'toilet' stand out as it allows for intricate text visuals beyond the standard ASCII set.

  • Color and format options: Customise your text with color and various formatting options to make the output stand out or match your aesthetic preferences.

  • Support for various character fonts: Change fonts to modify the style of your output, providing a creative touch to the displayed text.

Installation Instructions

The availability and installation of 'toilet' might vary based on the Linux distribution you are using. Here's how you can install 'toilet' on different platforms:

Debian-Based Systems (like Ubuntu)

For Debian-based distributions such as Ubuntu, 'toilet' can be installed using the apt package manager. Open your terminal and run the following commands:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install toilet

Fedora and RHLE-Based Systems

If you’re using Fedora or other distributions based on Red Hat, such as RHEL or CentOS, you can use the dnf package manager:

sudo dnf install toilet

openSUSE

For openSUSE users, 'toilet' can be installed using the zypper package manager:

sudo zypper install toilet

How to Use 'toilet'

Using 'toilet' is straightforward. Here are some basic ways you can start creating text-based art:

  • Basic Usage: Simply type toilet followed by the text you wish to transform:
toilet Hello World
  • Adding Color: To add color to your ASCII art, use the -F option:
toilet -F border --gay Hello World
  • Using Different Fonts: To use a different font, employ the -f option and specify the font:
toilet -f mono12 -F metal Hello World

You can explore the fonts available by looking in the /usr/share/figlet directory or your system's equivalent location for FIGlet and TOIlet fonts.

Conclusion

Whether you want to enhance your script outputs, beautify your terminal logs, or just prank your co-workers, 'toilet' is an excellent tool to add some artistic flair to your text. It’s simple to install and use across numerous Linux distributions, and it provides a splash of color and creativity whenever you use your terminal. Give it a try and see how artistic your terminal can get with just a simple command!

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