[Tex/LaTex] How to typeset a file containing ASCII art using a fixed-width character font

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I have a string with the text precisely spaced the way I want it displayed. It's sort of an ASCII art project. I want to convert this text to a PDF so I can print a poster with the text at my local printshop.

The font needs to be fixed width and there are no tabs or anything like that. The lines end in the \n character. There are several space characters.

The image is several hundred characters wide and several hundred high. So, it doesn't fit in the space of a typical page.

Is there an easy way to do this in LaTeX?

Best Answer

Assuming your ascii art project is contained in a separate file called, say, artproject.asc, you could use the fancyvrb package and its command \VerbatimInput to display the contents of the file using a "typewriter" (aka monospaced) font. Obviously, there are lots and lots of different monospaced fonts, so you'll probably want to play around a bit and determine which font works best for your project.

The following MWE shows how this might be done; it assumes that the paper size is A0, that you want a margin of 1in on all four sides of the page, and that you will use the font "beramono".

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[a0paper,margin=1in]{geometry}
\usepackage{fancyvrb}
\usepackage{beramono} % or whatever monospaced font you wish to employ
\begin{document}
\pagestyle{empty} % don't need to display page numbers, right?
\VerbatimInput{artproject.asc}
\end{document}
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