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

# tgatoppm(1)

convert TrueVision Targa file to a PPM image

## NAME

tgatoppm - convert TrueVision Targa file to a PPM image

## SYNOPSIS

**tgatoppm**\
 	\[**--alphaout=**{*alpha-filename*,**-**}\]\
 	\[**--headerdump**\] *tga-filename*

## DESCRIPTION

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

**tgatoppm** reads a TrueVision Targa file as input and produces a PPM image as output.

## OPTIONS

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

All options can be abbreviated to their shortest unique prefix.

- **--alphaout=***alpha-filename*

  **tgatoppm**  creates a PGM image containing the transparency channel values in the input image.  If the input image doesn't contain a transparency channel, the *alpha-filename* file contains all zero (transparent) transparency values.  If you don't specify **--alphaout**, **tgatoppm** does not generate an alpha file, and if the input image has a transparency channel, **tgatoppm** simply discards it.

  If you specify **-** as the filename, **tgatoppm** writes the transparency output to Standard Output and discards the image.

  See [**pamcomp**(1)](/pamcomp/1.md)  for one way to use the transparency output file.

- **--headerdump**

  Causes **tgatoppm** to dump information from the TGA header to Standard Error.

## SEE ALSO

[**ppmtotga**(1)](/ppmtotga/1.md) , [**pamcomp**(1)](/pamcomp/1.md) , **ppm**(1)

## AUTHOR

Partially based on tga2rast, version 1.0, by Ian J. MacPhedran.

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/tgatoppm.html**