ASCII is a simple macOS tool that can be used to design and generate 8x8 glyphs and icons for electronics projects based on monochrome and bi-colour LED matrix displays.

For more information on using ASCII — and a binary download — please see this page.

• 2.0.0 24 March 2025
  • Ground-up rewrite in Swift and SwiftUI.
  • Add library of pre-designed icons.
  • Add UInt64 as an icon input/output format.
  • Switching input/output format changes the presentation of the input/output data on the fly.
• 1.4.0 10 December 2020
  • Add pixel shifting: left, right, up and down with Cmd-arrow.
  • Add keyboard shortcuts.
  • Big Sur-style icon.
• 1.3.1 23 November 2020
  • Fix 'stuck' pixels.
• 1.3.0 13 November 2020
  • Support three-colour LED matrices.
  • Apple Silicon support.
• 1.2.1 4 February 2020
  • Fix cut-and-paste in hex code entry/readout field.
  • App now quits when the window is closed.
  • New app icon.
• 1.2.0 27 January 2020
  • Re-orient grid co-ordinates.
  • Support click-and-hold to ‘paint’ pixels.
  • Add horizontal and vertical flipping.
  • Add a choice to output or input byte values in string or array forms.
  • Add Actions menu as an alternative to the buttons.
  • Support macOS Dark Mode.
• 1.1.3 26 July 2018
  • Initial release.

ASCII’s source code is licensed under the MIT license.

ASCII source code, artwork and UI design are copyright © 2025, Tony Smith.