ppmtosixel(1) - phpMan

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 image file. If -raw
is not specified, output will default to compressed format in which identical adja-
cent 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 specified, 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.