About ASCII Box Drawer

Wrap any text in a Unicode box (┌─┐) — great for READMEs. Part of the DevTools Surf developer suite. Browse more tools in the Text / String collection.

Use Cases

• Developers adding decorative headers to README and documentation files
• CLI tool builders framing output messages in terminal applications
• DevOps engineers formatting alerts and status messages in plain-text reports
• Open-source maintainers creating visually appealing ASCII banners

Tips

• Paste any text to wrap it in a clean Unicode box border instantly
• Use the output in README files for visually distinct section headers
• Try multi-line text to see automatic width adjustment to the longest line

Fun Facts

• Unicode box-drawing characters (U+2500-U+257F) were inherited from the IBM PC Code Page 437 (1981), which was used for text-mode UI in DOS applications.
• The box-drawing block contains 128 characters covering single, double, and mixed-weight lines in all directions — enough to draw complex tables and borders.
• Before Unicode, each platform had its own box-drawing characters — CP437 (DOS), Mac Roman, and ISO 8859 all used different code points, causing garbled displays.

FAQ

Which box-drawing characters does it use?

Unicode box-drawing characters (U+2500 range): ┌ ─ ┐ │ └ ┘. Three styles: single-line, double-line (╔═╗), and rounded corners (╭─╮).

Will the box render correctly in my terminal?

Any modern terminal with UTF-8 support. For Windows cmd.exe on older versions, ensure the code page is set to UTF-8 (chcp 65001) first.

Can I use it in Markdown?

Yes, inside a code fence. Outside code fences, the pipe character | may get interpreted as a table separator — keep them in ``` blocks.

What's the longest width it supports?

No hard limit, but 80 columns is the universally readable width for READMEs and terminal output. Wide boxes break formatting on narrow screens.