Sure (it's limited on the number of glyphs, but it seems your locale is using UTF-8 encoding). I use this for testing: #!/bin/sh # send character-string to enable UTF-8 mode if test ".$1" = ".off" ; then printf '\033%%@' else printf '\033%%G' fi and (calling it "utf8"), "utf8 on" turns the encoding on. Using the example given with `pstree`, here is an example *after* running the script (before, the same sort of output as in the question): [![screenshot after "utf8 on"][1]][1] As noted in a comment, there's a script `unicode_start` which does *more*, but all that is needed to address the question posed is the small script used as an example. Addressing a different comment: At least on my system (and in the screenshot shown in the question), all of the characters used by `pstree` are supplied in the 512-glyph font used by default for Unicode support in the Linux console. Further reading: - [console_codes - Linux console escape and control sequences][2] - [Into the Mist: How Linux Console Fonts Work][3] [1]: https://i.sstatic.net/nZNW2.png [2]: http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man4/console_codes.4.html [3]: http://www.tldp.org/LDP/LG/issue91/loozzr.html