ppmtosixel

ppmtosixel(1)               General Commands Manual              ppmtosixel(1)

NAME
       ppmtosixel - convert a portable pixmap into DEC sixel format

SYNOPSIS
       ppmtosixel [-raw] [-margin] [ppmfile]

DESCRIPTION
       Reads  a  portable  pixmap  as input.  Produces sixel commands (SIX) as
       output.  The output is formatted for color printing,  e.g.  for  a  DEC
       LJ250 color inkjet printer.

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

OPTIONS
       -raw   If specified, each pixel will be explicitly described in the im-
              age file.  If -raw is not specified, output will default to com-
              pressed 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 -margin is not specified, the image will be start at the left
              margin (of the window, paper, or whatever).  If -margin is spec-
              ified, a 1.5 inch left margin will offset the image.

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

BUGS
       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(5)

AUTHOR
       Copyright (C) 1991 by Rick Vinci.

                                 26 April 1991                   ppmtosixel(1)