How do I output ASCII Art to console?

Just use a newline delimited string, here-string or Get-Content -Raw if you have a source file. Both will give you a single multiline string without fuss. One thing the here-string is good for is not having to worry about the quotes you use (which could be a distinct possibility with ASCII art). An example using a here-string would be the following:

$text = @" "ROFL:ROFL:ROFL:ROFL"         _^___ L    __/   [] \    LOL===__        \  L      \________]         I   I        --------/"@

Or if you choose to go the source file approach:

$text = Get-Content -Raw $path

Or if you only have PowerShell 2.0 $text = Get-Content $path | Out-String

Either way you can follow up with Write-Host or whatever you want after that.

Getting funky with colours would require some special logic that, as far as I know, does not currently exist. Making a colourized output randomizer is simple enough. To get a basic idea I present Get-Funky

function Get-Funky{    param([string]$Text)    # Use a random colour for each character    $Text.ToCharArray() | ForEach-Object{        switch -Regex ($_){            # Ignore new line characters            "`r"{                break            }            # Start a new line            "`n"{                Write-Host " ";break            }            # Use random colours for displaying this non-space character            "[^ ]"{                # Splat the colours to write-host                $writeHostOptions = @{                    ForegroundColor = ([system.enum]::GetValues([system.consolecolor])) | get-random                    # BackgroundColor = ([system.enum]::GetValues([system.consolecolor])) | get-random                    NoNewLine = $true                }                Write-Host $_ @writeHostOptions                break            }            " "{Write-Host " " -NoNewline}        }     }}

That will take a newline delimited string and use random host colours for displaying the output. We use splatting with $writeHostOptions so you could easily control the colours. You could even have parameters that force one of the colours or disabled colourizing of one etc. Here is some sample output:

$art = " .:::.   .:::.`n:::::::.:::::::`n:::::::::::::::':::::::::::::'`n  ':::::::::'`n    ':::::'`n      ':'"Get-Funky $art 

Heart ascii art found at asciiworld.com

It's a piece of my PowerShell $PROFILE:

# Personalize the console$Host.UI.RawUI.WindowTitle = "Windows Powershell " + $Host.Version;# Draw welcome screenWrite-Host -ForegroundColor DarkYellow "                       _oo0oo_"Write-Host -ForegroundColor DarkYellow "                      o8888888o"Write-Host -ForegroundColor DarkYellow "                      88`" . `"88"Write-Host -ForegroundColor DarkYellow "                      (| -_- |)"Write-Host -ForegroundColor DarkYellow "                      0\  =  /0"Write-Host -ForegroundColor DarkYellow "                    ___/`----'\___"Write-Host -ForegroundColor DarkYellow "                  .' \\|     |// '."Write-Host -ForegroundColor DarkYellow "                 / \\|||  :  |||// \"Write-Host -ForegroundColor DarkYellow "                / _||||| -:- |||||- \"Write-Host -ForegroundColor DarkYellow "               |   | \\\  -  /// |   |"Write-Host -ForegroundColor DarkYellow "               | \_|  ''\---/''  |_/ |"Write-Host -ForegroundColor DarkYellow "               \  .-\__  '-'  ___/-. /"Write-Host -ForegroundColor DarkYellow "             ___'. .'  /--.--\  `. .'___"Write-Host -ForegroundColor DarkYellow "          .`"`" '<  `.___\_<|>_/___.' >' `"`"."Write-Host -ForegroundColor DarkYellow "         | | :  `- \`.;`\ _ /`;.`/ - ` : | |"Write-Host -ForegroundColor DarkYellow "         \  \ `_.   \_ __\ /__ _/   .-` /  /"Write-Host -ForegroundColor DarkYellow "     =====`-.____`.___ \_____/___.-`___.-'====="Write-Host -ForegroundColor DarkYellow "                       `=---='"# Create frequent commandsNew-Alias -Name vsc -Value "D:\Program Files\VSCode\Code.exe";$HOSTS = "$env:SystemRoot\system32\drivers\etc\hosts";$Desktop = "$env:USERPROFILE\Desktop"$Documents = "$env:USERPROFILE\Documents"$TimestampServer = "http://timestamp.digicert.com"Set-Location D:\Scripts;

Just a reference.

PowerShell can do multi-line strings (with all kinds of strings; this isn't limited to here-strings), so the following should work, actually:

Write-Host 'first linesecond linethird line'

Of course, if you're not in a function and don't care about any return values, you can just omit Write-Host completely. If you're reading from an external file, then in the same vein, Get-Content would just work:

Get-Content ascii.txt

if you really need Write-Host, then just use

Get-Content | % { Write-Host $_ }