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Box drawing characters

Unicode Box Drawing block (U+2500–U+257F) contains 128 characters for drawing tables, diagrams, and frames in plain text. They are part of every modern font and render correctly in terminals, code blocks, and markdown files.

Common characters

Corners: ┌ ┐ └ ┘  (light)   ╔ ╗ ╚ ╝  (double)
Horizontal: ─ ━ (light/heavy)
Vertical:   │ ┃ (light/heavy)
T-junctions: ├ ┤ ┬ ┴ ┼
Rounded corners: ╭ ╮ ╯ ╰

Uses

ASCII diagrams in code comments, README files, and technical documentation.
Terminal UI (TUI) applications that display tables and panels.
Decorative frames for cards and banners in monospace contexts.

Full character reference

Character	Unicode	Description
─	U+2500	Light horizontal
│	U+2502	Light vertical
┌	U+250C	Light down and right (top-left corner)
┐	U+2510	Light down and left (top-right corner)
└	U+2514	Light up and right (bottom-left corner)
┘	U+2518	Light up and left (bottom-right corner)
├	U+251C	Light vertical and right (left T-junction)
┤	U+2524	Light vertical and left (right T-junction)
┬	U+252C	Light down and horizontal (top T-junction)
┴	U+2534	Light up and horizontal (bottom T-junction)
┼	U+253C	Light vertical and horizontal (cross)
═	U+2550	Double horizontal
║	U+2551	Double vertical
╔	U+2554	Double down and right (top-left corner)
╗	U+2557	Double down and left (top-right corner)
╚	U+255A	Double up and right (bottom-left corner)
╝	U+255D	Double up and left (bottom-right corner)

Worked example: directory tree

Box-drawing characters are the building blocks of directory tree diagrams in terminal output and documentation (similar to what tree and ls --tree produce):

src/
├── components/
│   ├── Header.astro
│   └── Footer.astro
├── pages/
│   ├── index.astro
│   └── about.astro
└── styles/
    └── global.css

The ├── sequence combines U+251C (left T-junction), U+2500 (horizontal), and U+2500 again. The final item in each directory uses └── (U+2514 + two U+2500s). Continuation lines use │ (U+2502) with spaces for indentation.

Font compatibility

Box-drawing characters render correctly in monospace fonts: Consolas, Courier New, JetBrains Mono, Fira Code, Cascadia Code, and most terminal fonts. They break or become misaligned in proportional fonts (Arial, Helvetica, Times New Roman) because the characters rely on fixed character widths to form continuous lines. Always display box-drawing output in a <pre> block or a monospace environment.