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Tree ASCII Art

Ascii art tree designs, from a three-line pine and a forest to a tree with a swing, drawn in text. Tap to copy.

By Maya Chen, lettering designer and type educator · Checked by Jordan Hale · · How we review content

Small trees

4 lines, 8 wide
6 lines, 10 wide
4 lines, 21 wide

Bigger trees

8 lines, 13 wide
7 lines, 19 wide
8 lines, 17 wide

Made with our image converter

We drew a simple leafy tree shape and ran it through the image to ASCII converter on this site. Braille pieces pack eight dots into each character, so they look smoother but rely on a font with Braille Patterns.

11 lines, 18 wide
17 lines, 26 wide
7 lines, 10 wide

9 pieces on this page. All are drawn for this site except those marked traditional, which have been shared online for years without a known author. Copy one and paste it into a code block, a terminal or any app that uses a monospace font; in a proportional font the lines drift apart. Make your own with the text to ASCII generator or the image to ASCII converter.

Key facts

  • Pine trees are the easiest text trees: a stack of lines each two characters wider than the last, ending in a trunk, with ^ as needles.
  • Leafy trees use a rough circle of brackets, dots and quotes for the crown and two parallel | lines as the trunk.
  • A forest is several small pines side by side with one space between, varied in height, with the trunks on the last line.
  • The hand-drawn trees here use only standard keyboard characters; the Braille trees use Unicode Braille Patterns.
  • A directory tree drawn with box drawing characters such as ├── and └── is a diagram, not a picture of a tree.

How do you draw a tree in text?

Pine trees are the easiest trees to draw with characters: a stack of lines that get wider by two characters each time, ending with a trunk. ^ makes good needles because it points up. Leafy trees are harder: the crown is a rough circle made of brackets, dots and quotes, with the trunk as two parallel | lines.

Tree Characters Notes
Pine ^ /\ Widen by two per line
Round tree # @ ( ) Keep the crown centred over the trunk
Forest Several pines Line all trunks up on the bottom line

Is an ASCII art tree the same as a directory tree?

No. A text tree of folders is a different thing: a directory tree drawn with box drawing characters such as ├──, │ and └──.

To turn a photo of a real tree into text, use the image to ASCII converter. Trees with a clear outline against the sky convert best. Whichever ascii art tree you pick, trees with a clear outline against the sky convert best from photos.

Frequently asked questions

Basics

Which tree is pure ASCII?
All of the hand-drawn trees here use only standard keyboard characters, so they are safe in code comments, terminals and plain text email. The Braille trees use Unicode Braille Patterns. Braille trees look smoother and need a font with those characters, which most phones and computers have.
What is the easiest tree to draw in text?
A pine. It is a stack of lines that each get two characters wider than the one above, ending in a short trunk, so you can build it by adding one line at a time. Round leafy trees take more care.
Which characters work for pine needles and leaves?
Use ^ or /\ for pine needles because they point up, and # , @ or ( ) for the crown of a round tree. The trunk is a short | or two parallel | lines, kept in the middle under the crown.

Where it works

Why is ASCII art of trees used in programming?
Text trees are a common way to show a directory or data structure in plain text, for example with the tree command or in a README. Those are diagrams, built with ├── and └── box drawing characters, rather than pictures of trees.
Where can I use tree ASCII art in code?
The hand-drawn trees use only standard keyboard characters, so they are safe in code comments, terminals and plain text email. Braille trees need a font that has Unicode Braille Patterns, which most phones and computers include. Test the Braille ones in your editor before relying on them.
Which tree should I use for Christmas?
Use the Christmas ASCII art page, which has small and larger Christmas trees, a tree with presents and a snowman. The trees here are plain trees and forests, without Christmas decorations. The Christmas page also explains how to size a tree by lines and width, which carries over to any pine.

How it works

How do I make a forest?
Repeat a small pine side by side with one space between, varying the heights. Keep the trunks on the last line so the forest has a common ground line. Pines of different heights look more like a forest than rows of identical trees, and one ground line keeps them tidy.
How do I draw a leafy tree?
Make the crown a rough circle from brackets, dots and quotes, then give it a trunk of two parallel | lines directly under its middle. Keep the crown centred over the trunk or the tree will look as though it is falling over.
How do I draw a pine tree step by step?
Start with a small point, then add lines that each widen by two characters, using / on the left edge and \ on the right. Finish with a short trunk under the middle column. Check the shape in a monospace font.

Tips & limits

Which photos of trees convert best to text?
Trees with a clear outline against the sky convert best, because the converter reads the contrast between branches and background. Cluttered backgrounds turn into noise, so crop in close or choose a plain sky and try Braille mode. Everything stays in your browser during conversion.

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