ascii art looks bad

Lots of the art doesn't look right? Anyone know a fix?

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>Message-id: <35A...@erols.com>
>
>Lots of the art doesn't look right? Anyone know a fix?

Are you using the correct font?
Was the "ASCII art" created in the correct font?
Are there non-ASCII characters in the pic?

I'm not sure what you are referring to...
-joan
(love your sig, btw!)  ;)
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Joseph I. Malchow wrote:

> Lots of the art doesn't look right? Anyone know a fix?
>
> --
>         _ (.".) _          e-mail Joe at: jma...@erols.com
>        '-'/. .\'-'
>          /_   _\     _...._         Log Onto BAKTA! at:
>         (` o o `)---`      '.    http://www.surf.to/bakta/
>     jgs  /"---"`             \


Check the font you are using to view the art.  It should be a fixed
width font like courier.

Also check your page width and whether or not you have wrap around on.

Joseph I. Malchow wrote:
> 
> Lots of the art doesn't look right? Anyone know a fix?
> 

Another thing to check for is if there are tabs in the picture. It's not
a good idea to use tabs in ascii images. They may seem like a very
efficient way to make whitespace, but they can really mess up a picture.
The correct way is to only use ordinairy spaces, even if it does take a
little longer to draw the pictures that way.

You might also be helped by reading through The Ascii Art FAQ:

http://studserv.stud.uni-hannover.de/~freise/ascii/faq.html


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.----- On Wed, 08 Jul 1998 18:20:47 -0400, Joseph I. Malchow posted:
|Lots of the art doesn't look right? Anyone know a fix?
'---------------------


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
                  ASCII ART NOT LOOKING RIGHT? READ THIS!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

>>> If you can`t see what a picture is, take a read through this...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

First check... do the following two lines look the same length:

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM|
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII|

If they don`t, you are using the wrong font... use one of these, making
sure you have the right list for your system:

Windows:  FixedSys                                 (Supplied with Windows)
          Courier New                              (Supplied with Windows)
          Courier                                  (Supplied with Windows)
          Lucida Console             (Supplied with Microsoft Win95 Plus!)
          Topaz New
          Monotype.com
          Terminal
          Lucida Sans Typewiter
          OCR A Extended
          OCRB

Amiga:    Topaz                                                   (In ROM)
          Courier                             (Supplied with WorkBench 2+)
          Pearl
          Siesta
          XEN                                         (Comes with MagicWB)
          XCourier                                    (Comes with MagicWB)
          ascii
          tiny

AppleMac: Courier
          Monaco
          ZTerm

Acorn:    Corpus                                            (in Resources)
          Homerton                                          (in Resources)
          System                                            (in Resources)

                                                  [Taken from the MiniFAQ]

If you can`t find any of the fonts listed, just try different fonts until
the MMM line and the III line above line up.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Second Idea: Are you using Outlook Express?
Microsoft, in their infinate wisdom, decided that noone ever needs a
single space at the start of a line, so they made Outlook Express zap it
when the message is displayed. In the following examples, assume the line
of 'i' is the left margin, as if I used the true margin outlook express
would just zap the lines!

With a 'normal' newsreader:
   i |||||
   i| o o |
   i|  >  |
   i| \_/ |
   i \___/

With Outlook Express:
   i|||||
   i| o o |
   i|  >  |
   i| \_/ |
   i\___/

Which of the above does the following look like to you?

 |||||
| o o |
|  >  |
| \_/ |
 \___/


If you _are_ using Outlook Express then I`m afraid there`s not much you
can do about it... it`s hard coded that way. You`ll have to copy it to
Notepad and put all of the spaces back in by hand.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Next: Does it have lots of words in pointed brackets, like <HTML> and <B>?

If so, it`s an HTML Rich Message, and since your newsreader doesn`t seem
to support HTML, you`ll need to copy everything from the <HTML> to the
</HTML> into a text editor or wordprocessor, and save it in plain text
format with a filename ending in .HTM and view it in a web browser.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Does every other line look sort of ok to make a pic? It`s possible that
you or the poster are experiencing Word Wrap, where long lines are
continued on the line below... causing effects like this:

Assuming the word wrap limit was set to eight (which is not likely, it is
usually set to about 80)

...this:
    |||||
   | o o |
   |  >  |
   | \_/ |
    \___/

would become this:

    |||
||
   | o 
o |
   |  >
  |
   | \_
/ |
    \__
_/

because when the lines reach column eight, they are 'wrapped' onto the
next line.

You may or may not be able to fix this. If it is *your* word wrap settings
that are at fault, you can probably either turn off or increase the word
wrap limit in your newsreader.  However, if the wrapping was done by the
newsreader of the poster, unfortuately there is nothing you can do and
everyone will be seeing it this way.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

If all of these things don`t apply to you, then you need to post a plea
for help, stating which picture you are having problems with (if it is a
specific pic) and make sure you say you have read and tried this file, or
you will probably be told to read it. The final possibility I will suggest
is that it is not your fault at all... and It`s just a bad picture! If
this is the case, it`s the creator`s fault... you could have a go at
improving it for them! Note that if you do, It`s common practice to add
your initials/name to the picture in addition to that of the original
artist`s, for example if you were jms and you were diddling a pic by
mga, you would change the 'mga' to 'mga/jms'.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
              PICTURE VIEWING FAQ, WRITTEN BY MARTIN ATKINS
                  LAST UPDATED THURSDAY JULY 9th 1998
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

|\/| _..__|_o._   /\_|_| o._  _   mart.atkins@--
|  |(_||  |_|| | /--\|_|<|| |_>            --bigfoot.com

Martin Atkins wrote:
> 
> .----- On Wed, 08 Jul 1998 18:20:47 -0400, Joseph I. Malchow posted:
> |Lots of the art doesn't look right? Anyone know a fix?
> '---------------------
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>                   ASCII ART NOT LOOKING RIGHT? READ THIS!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> >>> If you can`t see what a picture is, take a read through this...
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> First check... do the following two lines look the same length:
> [ 8< ]
> 
> Second Idea: Are you using Outlook Express?
> [ 8< ]
> 
> Next: Does it have lots of words in pointed brackets, like <HTML> and <B>?
> [ 8< ]
>
> Does every other line look sort of ok to make a pic? 
> [ 8< ]
>
> If all of these things don`t apply to you, then you need to post a plea
> for help [ 8< ]

You forgot to mention "tab damage"...


-- 
              _    __   __                _             _
  __   ___.--'_`.  \ \ / /__ _ _ ___ _ _ (_)__ __ _   .'_`--.___   __
 ( _`.'. -   'o` )  \ V / -_) '_/ _ \ ' \| / _/ _` | ( 'o`   - .`.'_ )
 _\.'_'      _.-'    \_/\___|_| \___/_||_|_\__\__,_|  `-._      `_`./_
( \`. )    //\`                                         '/\\    ( .'/ )
 \_`-'`---'\\__,      uggc://jjj.yhqq.yhgu.fr/~ix/     ,__//`---'`-'_/
  \`        `-\            r93...@fz.yhgu.fr           /-'        '/
   `  ascii art chat: http://www.ludd.luth.se/~vk/cgi/asciichat/   '

Veronica Karlsson wrote:
> [ 8< ]
> 
> You forgot to mention "tab damage"...
> 

And "non-standard ascii" characters...


-- 
              _    __   __                _             _
  __   ___.--'_`.  \ \ / /__ _ _ ___ _ _ (_)__ __ _   .'_`--.___   __
 ( _`.'. -   'o` )  \ V / -_) '_/ _ \ ' \| / _/ _` | ( 'o`   - .`.'_ )
 _\.'_'      _.-'    \_/\___|_| \___/_||_|_\__\__,_|  `-._      `_`./_
( \`. )    //\`                                         '/\\    ( .'/ )
 \_`-'`---'\\__,      uggc://jjj.yhqq.yhgu.fr/~ix/     ,__//`---'`-'_/
  \`        `-\            r93...@fz.yhgu.fr           /-'        '/
   `  ascii art chat: http://www.ludd.luth.se/~vk/cgi/asciichat/   '

I am using outlook express and I have gotten mine to show up in courier new
font, though I can't remember how. Just thought I'd tell you that.