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

# psidtopgm(1)

convert PostScript "image" data to a PGM image

## NAME

psidtopgm - convert PostScript "image" data to a PGM image

## SYNOPSIS

**psidtopgm** *width* *height* *bits/sample* \[*imagedata*\]

## DESCRIPTION

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

**psidtopgm** reads the "image" data from a PostScript file as input and produces a PGM image as output.

This program is obsoleted by **pstopnm**.

What follows was written before **pstopnm**  existed.

This is a very simple and limited program, and is here only because so many people have asked for it.  To use it you have to *manually* extract the readhexstring data portion from your PostScript file, and then give the width, height, and bits/sample on the command line.  Before you attempt this, you should *at* *least* read the description of the "image" operator in the PostScript Language Reference Manual.

It would probably not be too hard to write a script that uses this filter to read a specific variety of PostScript image, but the variation is too great to make a general-purpose reader.  Unless, of course, you want to write a full-fledged PostScript interpreter...

## OPTIONS

There are no command line options defined specifically for **psidtopgm**, but it recognizes the options common to all programs based on libnetpbm (See \
  Common Options ⟨index.html#commonoptions⟩ .)

## SEE ALSO

[**pnmtops**(1)](/pnmtops/1.md) ,  **pgm**(1)

## AUTHOR

Copyright (C) 1989 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/psidtopgm.html**