Dot Art Copy and Paste

Pictures made of tiny dots. Tap one to copy it, then paste it into a note, a bio or a message. The thin pattern strips fit on a single line. The pictures on the buttons are drawn on an even grid so you can see the intended shape.

Medium pictures

The everyday size, three lines tall on a grid of 16 by 12 dots. Good for notes, profile pages and posts where you can control the font.

Dot art uses the Braille Patterns block of Unicode. Each character is a tiny grid of two columns and four rows of dots, which can be switched on or off in 256 combinations. Place a few of them side by side and the dots add up to a picture, a bit like a very small, very low-resolution screen made out of text.

Large pictures

The largest size here, five lines tall. Best in a post or a note; they usually do not fit in short bios.

Outline versions

The same idea, but only the edge is drawn. They look lighter and use less ink-like weight.

Pattern strips and dividers

One-line patterns for borders and separators. They are our own repeats of the braille dots.

Block bars and gradients

Block characters that make bars, fades and checkerboards. They are not braille, but they work in the same way.

The pictures on this page were drawn by our own shape code, not copied from other collections: hearts, stars, sparkles, moons, flowers, clouds, suns, cats, bows and a few simple shapes, each in two sizes. A section of outlines follows, then pattern strips for dividers, and finally block characters that work as bars and gradients.

Dot art is sensitive to fonts. Braille characters are drawn at a different width on different systems, and chat apps that use proportional fonts can misalign the lines of a picture. If a picture has several lines, paste it into a place that uses a fixed-width font, such as a code block or a notes page, and expect the look to vary by device. Single-line strips are safer.

How to use dot art

  1. Tap a picture to copy it. Multi-line pictures keep their line breaks when pasted.
  2. Paste into a place that keeps line breaks. A notes app, a document or a post is better than a single-line field.
  3. If the picture looks bent or broken after pasting, the app's font is probably drawing braille at uneven widths. Try a fixed-width font or a code block where the app supports one, or use the text only on platforms where it looks right.
  4. Use strips and block bars for dividers. They stay on one line and are the most reliable pieces on the page.
  5. To make your own from an image, open the image to dot art tool. It runs in your browser and does not upload your picture.

Questions people ask

What is dot art made of?

It uses the Braille Patterns characters, which are 256 small dot grids. They are used for Braille writing, but anyone can also use them as tiny pixels.

Why does my picture look crooked?

Braille and block characters are drawn by different fonts at different widths, so the lines can drift apart in apps that do not give them equal widths. The pictures on this page are drawn on a fixed grid so you can see the intended shape; the text you copy is the same characters, and how it looks after pasting depends on the app's font. A fixed-width font or a code block usually helps.

Is the picture on the button exactly what I paste?

The button shows the picture drawn from the same characters, on an even grid, so it shows the shape we intended. What you paste is plain text. Some apps and fonts draw braille unevenly, so it can look different there. We have not tested individual apps, so check the result where you plan to use it, and use the text only where it looks right.

Can I use dot art in a bio?

Single-line strips usually work. Multi-line pictures often get their spacing changed in bios, and we have not tested individual apps, so check the preview.

Where do the pictures come from?

They are generated by our own code from simple shapes such as a heart curve and a star polygon, so they are original to this site.

Why do my pictures look stretched or squashed?

Each device draws braille characters with its own proportions, so the same picture can look taller or wider somewhere else. A monospace font with square-ish dots gives the most faithful result, and the proportions may vary by device.

112 items on this page. Last reviewed 2026-10-24.