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

# pbmtomda(1)

convert a PBM image to a Microdesign .mda

## NAME

pbmtomda - convert a PBM image to a Microdesign .mda

## SYNOPSIS

**pbmtomda**

\[**-dscale**\] \[**-invert**\] \[**--**\]

\[*pbmfile*\]

Minimum unique abbreviation of option is acceptable.  You may use double hyphens instead of single hyphen to denote options.  You may use white space in place of the equals sign to separate an option name from its value.

## DESCRIPTION

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

**pbmtomda** reads a PBM image as input and produces a MicroDesign 2 area file (.MDA) as output.

If you do not specify *pbmfile*, **pbmtomda** uses Standard Input.

## OPTIONS

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

- **-d**

  Halve the height of the output file, to compensate for the aspect  ratio used in MicroDesign files.

- **-i**

  Invert the colors used.

- **--**

  End of options (use this if the filename starts with "-")

## LIMITATIONS

There's no way to produce files in MicroDesign 3 format. MD3 itself and  [**mdatopbm**(1)](/mdatopbm/1.md)  can read files in either format.

## SEE ALSO

[**mdatopbm**(1)](/mdatopbm/1.md) , **pbm**(1)

## AUTHOR

Copyright (C) 1999 John Elliott \<*jce@seasip.demon.co.uk*\>.

## 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/pbmtomda.html**