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How to Make Typing Art

Typing art, also more commonly known as ASCII art, is a type of design that has been around since the mid-1960s. The printable American Standard Code for Information Interchange characters commonly found on keyboards are used to create intricate line-art designs. Many of these designs are can be seen in emails and chat rooms, as well as through instant messages. Although various ASCII or typing art design generators exist, you can create your own personalized ASCII design with text-editing software.

Things You'll Need

Plastic sheet
Marker
Tape
Text-editing software

Instructions

- 1
  Determine the subject for the typing art and the style of your design. Many artists use lines, dashes, hyphens, underscores, periods and commas to create designs.
- 2
  Draw the image desired on a sheet of transparent plastic with a marker. Ensure the image consists of simple line art. Tape the image over your computer monitor screen.
- 3
  Double-click the desired text editing software on your system to open it. Select "New" from the "File" menu to create a document.
- 4
  Select a font with a fixed width for your design, such as a typewriter font. Many typing art designs use Courier.
- 5
  Type a row of spaces as wide as the image taped to the monitor. Select the row by highlighting the spaces. Navigate to the "Edit" menu and select "Copy."
- 6
  Click "Enter" on your keyboard to move to the following line. Select "Paste" to duplicate the space line. Repeat the procedure as many times as necessary to fill the height of your image.
- 7
  Click the "OVR" button on your keyboard to turn on overstrike.
- 8
  Move your cursor to the beginning of your image with your mouse. Begin creating the image by using any of the ASCII characters. Use the image on the plastic sheet as a guide for your typing art.
- 9
  Erase characters by placing your cursor in front of the characters and typing over the erroneous character. Move along the image with your cursor.

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