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

# pnmmontage(1)

create a montage of PNM images

## NAME

pnmmontage - create a montage of PNM images

## SYNOPSIS

**pnmmontage**

\[**-header=***headerfile*\]

\[**-quality=***n*\]

\[**-prefix=***prefix*\]

\[**-0**\|**-1**\|**-2**\|**...**\|**-9**\]

\[**-data=***filename*\]

*pnmfile*...

## DESCRIPTION

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

**pnmmontage** packs images of differing sizes into a minimum-area composite image.

Areas of the output that cannot be occupied by an image are black.

## OPTIONS

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

- **-data=***filename*

  This option causes **pnmmontage** to write a file that describes in machine-readable form the positions of the original images within the packed image.  Here is an example:

  ```
  <span style="font-family: monospace">
              :0:0:227:298
              ../image1.ppm:0:0:227:149
              ../image2.ppm:0:149:227:149
  </span>
  ```

  There is a line for each component image and one for the composite.

  The 5 fields on each line are:

- •

  source image name (or null string indicating the line for the composite image)

- •

  Column number of upper left corner of the image

- •

  Row number of upper left corner of the image

- •

  width of the image (columns)

- •

  height of the image (rows)

  This option was new in Netpbm 10.6 (July 2002).

- **-header=***filename*

  Tells **pnmmontage** to write a C header file of the locations of the original images within the packed image.  Each original image generates four #defines within the packed file: xxxX, xxxY, xxxSZX, and xxxSZY, where xxx is the name of the file, converted to all uppercase.  The output also includes #defines OVERALLX and OVERALLY, which specifies the total size of the montage image.

  Here is an example:

  ```
              #define OVERALLX 227
              #define OVERALLY 298
              #define X 0
              #define Y 0
              #define SZX 227
              #define SZY 149
              #define X 0
              #define Y 149
              #define SZX 227
              #define SZY 149
  ```

- **-prefix**

  Tells **pnmmontage** to use the specified prefix on all of the #defines it generates.

- **-quality**

  Before attempting to place the subimages, **pnmmontage** will calculate a minimum possible area for the montage; this is either the total of the areas of all the subimages, or the width of the widest subimage times the height of the tallest subimage, whichever is greater.  **pnmmontage** then initiates a problem-space search to find the best packing; if it finds a solution that is (at least) as good as the minimum area times the quality as a percent, it will break out of the search.  Thus, **-quality=100** will find the best possible solution; however, it may take a very long time to do so.  The default is **-quality=200.**

- **-0**, **-1**, ... **-9**

  These options control the quality at a higher level than **-quality**; **-0** is the worst quality (pick the first solution found), while **-9** is the best quality (perform an exhaustive search of problem space for the absolute best packing). The higher the number, the slower the computation.  The default is **-5**.

## NOTES

Using **-9** is very slow on all but the smallest image sets.

The minimum area arrangement is often not a convenient shape.  For example, it might be a tall, thin column of images, when you'd rather have something more square.  To force a minimum width or height, you can include a strut image - a black image that wide and one pixel high. Similarly, you can use a vertical strut to force a minimum height.

## SEE ALSO

[**pamcat**(1)](/pamcat/1.md) , [**pnmindex**(1)](/pnmindex/1.md) , **pnm**(1) , **pam**(1) , **pbm**(1) , **pgm**(1) , **ppm**(1)

## HISTORY

**pnmmontage** was new in Netpbm 9.10 (January 2001).

## AUTHOR

Copyright (C) 2000 by Ben Olmstead.

## 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/pnmmontage.html**