---
name: "palmtopnm"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "netpbm"
version: "10.86.51-2"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/palmtopnm"
---

# palmtopnm(1)

convert a Palm Bitmap to a PNM image

## NAME

palmtopnm - convert a Palm Bitmap to a PNM image

## SYNOPSIS

**palmtopnm**

\[**-verbose**\]

\[**-rendition** *N*\]

\[**-showhist**\]

\[*palmfile*\] **palmtopnm**

**-transparent**

\[**-verbose**\]

\[*palmfile*\]

## DESCRIPTION

This program is part of **Netpbm**(1) .

**palmtopnm** reads a Palm Bitmap as input, from Standard Input or *palmfile* and produces a PPM image as output.

Alternatively (when you specify **-transparent**), **palmtopnm** writes the value of the transparent color in the Palm Bitmap to Standard Output.

**Palmtopnm** can convert Palm Bitmaps with the following features. This does not mean that it doesn't handle other features.  These are just the ones we found worth mentioning.

- •

  Version 0

- •

  Version 1

- •

  Version 2

- •

  Version 3 (new in Netpbm 10.27 (March 2005))

- •

  Scanline compression

- •

  RLE compression

- •

  Packbits compression (new in Netpbm 10.27 (March 2005))

## OPTIONS

In addition to the options common to all programs based on libnetpbm (most notably **-quiet**, see \
  Common Options ⟨index.html#commonoptions⟩ ), **palmtopnm** recognizes the following command line options:

- **-verbose**

  Display various interesting information about the input file and process.

- **-transparent**

  If the Palm Bitmap has a transparent color set,  **palmtopnm** writes the value for that color to Standard Output in the form #RRGGBB, where RR, GG, and BB are two-digit hexadecimal numbers indicating a value in the range 0 through 255.  If no transparent color is set in the Bitmap, **palmtopnm** writes nothing.  **palmtopnm** does not generate any output image when you specify **-transparent**.

- **-rendition N**

  Palm Bitmaps may contain several different renditions of the same image, with different depths.  By default, **palmtopnm**  operates on the first rendition (rendition number 1) in the image.  This switch allows you to operate on a different rendition.  The value must be between 1 and the number of renditions in the image, inclusive.

- **-showhist**

  This option causes **palmtopnm** to  write a histogram of colors in the input file to Standard Error.

## SEE ALSO

[**pnmtopalm**(1)](/pnmtopalm/1.md) , [**pamtopdbimg**(1)](/pamtopdbimg/1.md) , **pnm**(1) ,

## LIMITATIONS

You cannot generate a transparency mask if the Palm Bitmap has a transparent color.  However, you can still do this with **ppmcolormask** with a Netpbm pipe similar to:

**palmtopnm bitmap.palm \|**  **ppmcolormask \`palmtopnm -transparent bitmap.palm\`**

## HISTORY

Before Netpbm 10.23 (July 2004), there was a **-forceplain** option.  But that had been redundant for a long time, since the Netpbm  common option **-plain** does the same thing.

## AUTHORS

This program was originally written as Tbmptopnm.c, by Ian Goldberg. It was heavily modified by Bill Janssen to add color, compression, and transparency function.

Copyright 1995-2001 by Ian Goldberg and Bill Janssen.

## 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/palmtopnm.html**