Is this a true clickable per-cell grid, or a text area?

It's a fixed-width monospace text area with a column-position ruler displayed above it, rather than a grid of individually clickable cells. Given this site's UI kit (plain buttons, inputs, and text areas, no rich canvas/grid widget), a ruler-guided text area gives the same practical drawing experience, type any character at any position, while staying simple and fast.

What happens if I type past the configured grid size?

You can type freely, including past the configured width or number of rows, while editing. Export (and the live output preview) always pads short lines with spaces and truncates long ones so the result matches your configured columns x rows exactly.

How do I resize the grid without losing my art?

Change the Columns/Rows values and click Resize Grid. Existing lines are kept and padded or trimmed to the new width; if you reduce the row count, lines beyond the new row count are dropped.

Can I add color to my ASCII art here?

No, this editor is plain monospace text with no per-character color. Use ANSI Art Editor instead, which adds a paintable foreground color per cell and exports real ANSI color escape codes alongside the plain-text grid.

ASCII Art Editor - Draw Character Grid Art Online

Overview

Introduction

Drawing ASCII art by hand in a plain text editor usually means constantly counting spaces to line up borders, which gets tedious past a handful of lines.

This editor adds a column-position ruler above a fixed-size monospace grid, so you always know exactly which column you're typing into, and a configurable rows x columns size so the exported art is always a clean rectangle.

What Is ASCII Art Editor?

A character-grid text editor purpose-built for drawing ASCII art: a monospace text area sized to your chosen columns and rows, with a numbered ruler directly above it for alignment.

It's a simpler cousin of a true clickable-cell grid widget, chosen deliberately to fit this site's plain-input UI kit, documented explicitly rather than presented as something it isn't.

How ASCII Art Editor Works

You set a columns and rows value (1-120 each) and click Resize Grid, which creates or resizes a blank (space-filled) grid of that exact size, preserving whatever you'd already typed where it still fits.

The ruler above the text area is generated as two lines, a tens digit every 10 columns and a ones digit every column, giving a quick visual reference for column position while you type.

On export, every line is padded with trailing spaces or truncated to exactly match the configured column count, and the line count is padded or trimmed to match the configured row count, so the output is always a clean rectangle regardless of what you actually typed.

When To Use ASCII Art Editor

Use it to hand-draw ASCII art, borders, banners, or diagrams where you need precise character alignment.

Also useful as a scratchpad for building a single frame before pasting it into ASCII Animation Creator as one frame of a larger animation.

Often used alongside ANSI Art Editor, ASCII Animation Creator and ASCII to GIF Converter.

Features

Advantages

The column ruler makes precise alignment far easier than a plain text area.
Export always produces a clean, exact-size rectangle regardless of stray typing past the edges.
Resizing preserves existing art rather than discarding it.

Limitations

Not a true clickable per-cell grid, character-by-character editing is done by typing/positioning the cursor in a text area rather than clicking individual cells.
No color support, this editor is plain monospace text only.
Maximum grid size is capped at 120x120 to keep the editor responsive.

Examples

A small bordered box (10x4)

Input

+--------+
|  HI!   |
|        |
+--------+

Output

+--------+
|  HI!   |
|        |
+--------+

Each line is already exactly 10 characters wide and there are exactly 4 rows, so export leaves it unchanged.

A short line gets padded on export

Input

HI

Output

HI

With columns set to 10, the 2-character line "HI" is padded with 8 trailing spaces to fill the configured width.

Best Practices & Notes

Best Practices

Pick your final grid size before doing detailed work, resizing after heavy editing can clip content if you shrink the dimensions.
Use the ruler's tens digits to count out border positions before drawing long horizontal lines.

Developer Notes

Chosen implementation: a monospace `<textarea>` with a static two-line tens/ones ruler rendered above it, rather than a true per-cell clickable grid widget, since this UI kit only provides `Button`/`Input`/`Textarea`/`Label` (no canvas or rich grid component) and a couple hundred individually-managed cell inputs would be heavier and slower to type into than a plain text area. `normalizeGridText()` in the lib file is what guarantees export always matches the configured columns x rows exactly, independent of what the user actually typed.

ASCII Art Editor Use Cases

Hand-drawing ASCII borders, banners, boxes, and diagrams with precise column alignment
Building a single frame to paste into ASCII Animation Creator as part of a larger animation
Sketching layout mockups using plain text characters

Common Mistakes

Typing past the configured column count and expecting the live grid to auto-wrap; extra characters are simply trimmed off on export, not wrapped to a new line.
Shrinking the row or column count after finishing detailed art, which trims content rather than reflowing it.

Tips

Use the ruler's ones-digit row to precisely count in from the left edge when placing a specific character.
Export early to check the padded/trimmed result matches what you expect before doing more detailed work.

ASCII Art Editor