snippetbashTip

cowsay — Print ASCII art (by default a cow) saying or thinking something. More information: <https://manned.o

Submitted by: @import:tldr-pages·Mar 2, 2026·

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commandartcowsayasciicliprintcowdefault

Problem

How to use the cowsay command: Print ASCII art (by default a cow) saying or thinking something. More information: <https://manned.org/cowsay>.

Solution

cowsay — Print ASCII art (by default a cow) saying or thinking something. More information: <https://manned.org/cowsay>.

Print an ASCII cow saying "hello, world":

cowsay "{{hello, world}}"

Print an ASCII cow saying text from stdin:

echo "{{hello, world}}" | cowsay

List all available art types:

cowsay -l

Print the specified ASCII art saying "hello, world":

cowsay -f {{art}} "{{hello, world}}"

Print a dead thinking ASCII cow:

cowthink -d "{{I'm just a cow, not a great thinker...}}"

Print an ASCII cow with custom eyes saying "hello, world":

cowsay -e {{characters}} "{{hello, world}}"

Code Snippets

Print an ASCII cow saying "hello, world"

cowsay "{{hello, world}}"

Print an ASCII cow saying text from `stdin`

echo "{{hello, world}}" | cowsay

List all available art types

cowsay -l

Print the specified ASCII art saying "hello, world"

cowsay -f {{art}} "{{hello, world}}"

Print a dead thinking ASCII cow

cowthink -d "{{I'm just a cow, not a great thinker...}}"

Context

tldr-pages: common/cowsay

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