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

# pbmtoascii(1)

convert a PBM image to ASCII graphics

## NAME

pbmtoascii - convert a PBM image to ASCII graphics

## SYNOPSIS

**pbmtoascii**

\[**-1x2**\|**-2x4**\]

\[*pbmfile*\]

## DESCRIPTION

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

**pbmtoascii** reads a PBM image as input and produces a somewhat crude ASCII graphic image as output.

To convert back, use [**asciitopgm**(1)](/asciitopgm/1.md) .

**ppmtoterm** does a similar thing for color images to be displayed on color text terminals.

## OPTIONS

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

The **-1x2** and **-2x4** options give you two alternate ways for the pixels to get mapped to characters.  With **1x2**, the default, each character represents a group of 1 pixel across by 2 pixels down.  With **-2x4**, each character represents 2 pixels across by 4 pixels down.  With the 1x2 mode you can see the individual pixels, so it's useful for previewing small images on a non-graphics terminal.  The 2x4 mode lets you display larger images on a small display, but it obscures pixel-level details.  2x4 mode is also good for displaying PGM images:

```
pamscale -width 158 | pnmnorm | pamditherbw -threshold | pbmtoascii -2x4
```

should give good results.

## SEE ALSO

[**asciitopgm**(1)](/asciitopgm/1.md) , [**ppmtoascii**(1)](/ppmtoascii/1.md) , [**ppmtoterm**(1)](/ppmtoterm/1.md) , **pbm**(1)

## AUTHOR

Copyright (C) 1988, 1992 by Jef Poskanzer.

## 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/pbmtoascii.html**