Manual: ppmtosixel

Ppmtosixel User Manual(1)			   General Commands Manual			   Ppmtosixel User Manual(1)

NAME
       ppmtosixel - convert a PPM image to DEC sixel format

SYNOPSIS
       ppmtosixel

       [-raw]

       [-margin]

       [-7bit]

       [ppmfile]

DESCRIPTION
       This program is part of Netpbm(1).

       ppmtosixel reads a PPM image as input and produces sixel commands (SIX) as output.  The output is formatted for color
       printing	 (e.g. for a DEC LJ250 color inkjet printer) or for color display on DEC VT terminals and terminal emulators
       (VT240 and beyond).

       If RGB values from the PPM file do not have maxval=100, ppmtosixel rescales them to maxval 100.	 A  printer  control
       header  and a color assignment table begin the SIX file.	 Image data is in a compressed format by default.  A printer
       control footer ends the image file.

OPTIONS
       In addition to the options common to all programs based on libnetpbm (most notably  -quiet,  see	  Common Options  ),
       ppmtosixel recognizes the following command line options:

       -raw   If  you  specify	this,  each pixel will be explicitly described in the image file.  If -raw is not specified,
	      output will default to compressed format in which identical adjacent pixels are  replaced	 by  "repeat  pixel"
	      commands.	 A raw file is often an order of magnitude larger than a compressed file and prints much slower.

       -margin
	      If you don't specify -margin, the image will start at the left margin (of the window, paper, or whatever).  If
	      you do specify -margin, a 1.5 inch left margin will offset the image.

       -7bit  If  you don't specify -7bit, each control code will be expressed as a single, 8-bit "C1" character.  If you do
	      specify -7bit, each control code will be expressed using two, 7-bit "C0" characters.   (See  C0 and C1 control
	      codes   for more information.)  In other words, -7bit produces more portable sixel files, and its absence pro‐
	      duces smaller sixel files.

	      This option was new in Netpbm 11.04 (September 2023).

PRINTING
       Generally, sixel files must reach the printer unfiltered.  Use the lpr -x option or cat filename > /dev/tty0?.

LIMITATIONS
       Upon rescaling, truncation of the least significant bits of RGB values may result in poor color conversion.   If	 the
       original	 PPM  maxval was greater than 100, rescaling also reduces the image depth.  While the actual RGB values from
       the ppm file are more or less retained, the color palette of the LJ250 may not match the colors on your screen.	This
       seems to be a printer limitation.

SEE ALSO
       ppm(1)

AUTHOR
       Copyright (C) 1991 by Rick Vinci.

DOCUMENT SOURCE
       This manual page was generated by the Netpbm tool 'makeman' from HTML source.  The master documentation is at

	      http://netpbm.sourceforge.net/doc/ppmtosixel.html

netpbm documentation					1 August 2023				   Ppmtosixel User Manual(1)