Bit - Terminal ANSI Logo Designer & Font Library

Features • Quick Start • Installation • Usage • Library • Font Collection • Contributing • License • Acknowledgments

✨ Features

| Feature | Description | | --------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | 🌟 100+ Font Styles | Classic terminal, retro gaming, modern pixel, decorative, and monospace fonts. All free for commercial and personal use. | | 📤 Multi-Format Export | Export to TXT, Go, JavaScript, Python, Rust, and Bash with language-specific formatting. | | 🎨 Advanced Text Effects | Color gradient effects (horizontal & vertical), shadow effects (horizontal & vertical), and text scaling (0.5×–4×).| | 🌈 Rich Color Support | 14 vibrant predefined UI colors that can be combined with gradients. The library and CLI also accept any hex color for unlimited possibilities.| | 📐 Alignment & Spacing | Adjust character, word, and line spacing. Align text left, center, or right. | | ⚡️ Smart Typography | Automatic kerning, descender detection and alignment. | | 🛠️ Powerful CLI Tool | Render text quickly with extended options for fonts, colors, spacing, and effects. | | 📚 Standalone Go Library | A simple, self-contained API with type-safe enums for effortless programmatic ANSI text rendering. |

🚀 Quick Start

# 1. Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/superstarryeyes/bit
cd bit

# 2. Install dependencies
go mod tidy

# 3. Build the interactive UI
go build -o bit ./cmd/bit

# 4. Start creating!
./bit

📦 Installation

Quick Install (Linux/macOS)

curl -sfL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/superstarryeyes/bit/main/install.sh | sh

This installs bit to /usr/local/bin. The binary works in two modes:

Interactive UI: Run bit with no arguments
CLI mode: Run bit [options] <text> to render directly

Manual Installation

Download the latest release for your platform from the Releases page.

Available for:

Linux (x86_64, arm64)
macOS (x86_64, arm64)
Windows (x86_64, arm64)

Extract and install:

# Linux/macOS
tar -xzf bit_*_Linux_x86_64.tar.gz
sudo mv bit /usr/local/bin/

# Windows (PowerShell)
Expand-Archive bit_*_Windows_x86_64.zip
# Move bit.exe to your PATH

Build from Source

Prerequisites: Go 1.25+

# Clone repository
git clone https://github.com/superstarryeyes/bit
cd bit

# Build the binary
make build

# Or manually
go build -o bit ./cmd/bit

[!NOTE] Fonts are embedded using go:embed, ensuring the binaries are fully self-contained.

💻 Usage

Running Bit

# Start interactive UI
bit

# CLI mode - quick render
bit "Hello World"

# CLI mode - with options
bit -font ithaca -color 31 "Red Text"

# List all fonts
bit -list

# Load custom font or directory of fonts (along with built-in fonts)
bit -load ./myfont.bit
bit -load ./fonts/

# Show help
bit -help

Interactive UI - Keyboard Controls

| Key Binding | Action Description | | --------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | ← → | Navigate between the 6 main control panels | | Tab | Access sub-modes within panels | | ↑ ↓ | Adjust values in the currently selected panel or navigate text rows in multi-line mode | | Enter | Activate/deactivate text input mode for editing | | r | Randomize font, colors, and gradient settings for instant inspiration | | e | Enter export mode to save your creation in various formats | | Esc | Quit the application and return to terminal |

Control Panels

The UI features 6 main control panels with sub-modes accessible via Tab key:

1. 🔴 Text Input Panel (2 modes)

Text Input Mode: Enter and edit text with multi-line support
- Press ↓ to create new row
- Press ↑↓ to navigate between rows
- Cursor positions are tracked per-row
- The row count is shown in label when editing multiple rows
Text Alignment Mode: Choose Left, Center, or Right alignment

2. 🟢 Font Selection Panel

Browse through 100+ available bitmap fonts
Shows "Font X/XXX" in label
Fonts are lazy loaded on first use for memory efficiency

3. 🔵 Spacing Panel (3 modes)

Character Spacing: 0 to 10 pixels between characters
Word Spacing: 0 to 20 pixels for multi-word lines
Line Spacing: 0 to 10 pixels for multi-line text layout

4. 🟡 Color Panel (3 modes)

Text Color 1: Primary text color (14 ANSI colors)
Text Color 2: Gradient end color
- Gradient auto-enables when different from Text Color 1
- Shows "None" when same as Text Color 1
Gradient Direction: Up-Down, Down-Up, Left-Right, Right-Left

5. 🟣 Text Scale Panel

Four scale options: 0.5x, 1x, 2x, 4x
Uses ANSI-aware scaling algorithm
Handles half-pixel characters correctly

6. ⚫ Shadow Panel (3 modes)

Horizontal Shadow: -5 to 5 pixels (← or →)
- Shows "Off" at 0 position
Vertical Shadow: -5 to 5 pixels (↑ or ↓)
- Shows "Off" at 0 position
Shadow Style: Light (░), Medium (▒), Dark (▓)
- Visual preview shows actual ANSI character repeated

[!WARNING] If shadows are enabled with half-pixel characters, a warning appears in the title bar. The library automatically disables shadows in this case to prevent visual artifacts.

CLI Mode

The bit binary includes a powerful CLI mode for quick text rendering:

Basic Commands

# Render text with default settings
bit "Hello"

# List all available fonts
bit -list

# Use specific font and color (ANSI code)
bit -font ithaca -color 31 "Red"

# Use specific font and color (hex code)
bit -font ithaca -color "#FF0000" "Red"

# Gradient text with ANSI codes
bit -font dogica -color 31 -gradient 34 -direction right "Gradient"

# Gradient text with hex codes
bit -font dogica -color "#FF0000" -gradient "#0000FF" "Gradient"

# Text with shadow
bit -font larceny -color 94 -shadow -shadow-h 2 -shadow-v 1 "Shadow"

# Scaled text
bit -font pressstart -color 32 -scale 1 "2X"

# Aligned text
bit -font gohufontb -color 93 -align right "Go\nRight"

CLI Options

| Flag | Description | Values | | ----------------- | ------------------------------ | --------------------------------------- | | -font | Font name to use | Any available font name (default: first font) | | -color | Text color | ANSI codes (30-37, 90-96) or hex (#FF0000) | | -gradient | Gradient end color | ANSI codes (30-37, 90-96) or hex (#0000FF) | | -direction | Gradient direction | down, up, right, left | | -char-spacing | Character spacing | 0 to 10 | | -word-spacing | Word spacing | 0 to 20 | | -line-spacing | Line spacing | 0 to 10 | | -scale | Text scale factor | -1 (0.5x), 0 (1x), 1 (2x), 2 (4x) | | -shadow | Enable shadow effect | true/false | | -shadow-h | Shadow horizontal offset | -5 to 5 | | -shadow-v | Shadow vertical offset | -5 to 5 | | -shadow-style | Shadow style | 0 (light), 1 (medium), 2 (dark) | | -align | Text alignment | left, center, right | | -list | List all available fonts | - |

Available Colors

| Code | Color | Preview | Code | Color | Preview | | -------- | --------------- | ----------- | -------- | ---------------- | ----------- | | 30 | Black | | 90 | Gray | ![Gray](h

Bit

Install / Use

README