ditaa

convert ASCII art diagrams to graphics

TLDR

Convert ASCII art to PNG image

$ ditaa [input.txt] [output.png]

Convert with antialiasing disabled

$ ditaa -A [input.txt] [output.png]

Convert without shadows

$ ditaa -S [input.txt] [output.png]

Convert with rounded corners

$ ditaa -r [input.txt] [output.png]

Scale output image

$ ditaa -s [2.0] [input.txt] [output.png]

Output as SVG

$ ditaa --svg [input.txt] [output.svg]

Convert with transparent background

$ ditaa -T [input.txt] [output.png]

SYNOPSIS

ditaa [options] input [output]

ditaa (DIagrams Through ASCII Art) converts ASCII art diagrams into proper graphics. It recognizes boxes, lines, and basic shapes drawn with ASCII characters and renders them as bitmap or vector images.Input uses standard ASCII characters: +, -, | for box corners and edges, / and \\ for diagonals, = for dashed lines, and text inside boxes for labels. Color tags like {c:red} customize appearance.The tool is useful for documentation, where diagrams can be kept as ASCII in source files (version-controllable, editable) and rendered to images for publication.

PARAMETERS

-A, --no-antialias

Disable antialiasing.

-S, --no-shadows

Disable drop shadows.

-r, --round-corners

Use rounded corners for boxes.

-s, --scale factor

Scale output by factor.

-T, --transparent

Use transparent background.

-E, --no-separation

Disable shape edge separation.

-e, --encoding enc

Input file encoding.

--svg

Output as SVG instead of PNG.

-t, --tabs n

Tab size for input.

-v, --verbose

Verbose output.

ASCII ART EXAMPLE

$ +--------+   +-------+
|        +-->| ditaa |
| Source |   +-------+
|  File  |   |       |
|        |   | Image |
+--------+   +-------+

INSTALL

sudo dnf install ditaa

sudo pacman -S ditaa

brew install ditaa

nix profile install nixpkgs#ditaa

CAVEATS

Requires Java Runtime Environment. Complex diagrams may not render as expected. Limited to shapes that can be represented in ASCII. Some Unicode box-drawing characters are not recognized by default.

HISTORY

ditaa was created by Stathis Sideris in 2004 as an open-source Java application. The concept was inspired by the desire to keep diagrams as plain text in source code repositories while having nice rendered versions for documentation. The tool has been integrated into various documentation systems including Asciidoctor and Org-mode.