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ASCII-only canvas drawing in Obsidian. Draw with characters in a grid: pencil, shapes, fill, brush, spray, word art, selection and move.

2 starsTypeScript

A Simple Obisidan plugin to draw ASCII shapes like MS Paint

by h4kbas·Feb 25, 2026·3 points·0 comments

AI Analysis

●●SolidCozyNiche Gem

MS Paint for ASCII in Obsidian, solves real frustration with text-based diagram drift.

Strengths
  • Grid-based canvas prevents character misalignment when editing—direct pain point solved
  • Full feature parity with Paint (shapes, fill, spray, selection) without leaving notes
  • Embeddable and persistable as `.ascii` files within vault
Weaknesses
  • Obsidian-only; no broader ASCII editor use case or platform
  • Feature set is deliberately constrained—no color, animation, or advanced typography
Target Audience

Obsidian users who want to sketch diagrams and ASCII art in notes

Similar To

Obsidian Canvas (built-in) · Excalidraw (embedded in Obsidian)

Post Description

I like to draw things ascii on obsidian when I am working on projects but sometimes it's quite challanging for me because the line starts to shift as I edit some regions. I ended up building a ms paint like canvas experience for ascii so instead of thinking like it's text, we think like it's canvas but it still draws texts. Also, it supports embed on other notes and dynamic canvas size for your preference.

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