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

# winicontoppm(1)

convert a Windows .ico image into 1 or more PPM images

## NAME

winicontoppm - convert a Windows .ico image into 1 or more PPM images

## SYNOPSIS

**winicontoppm** \[**-writeands**\] \[**-allicons**\|**-bestqual**\] \[**-multippm**\] \[**-verbose**\] \[*iconfile*\] \[*ppmdestfile*\]

## DESCRIPTION

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

This program is essentially obsolete; The newer **winicontopam** is better.

**winicontoppm** reads a Microsoft Windows .ico file and converts it to one or more PPMs.

A Windows icon contains one or more images, at different resolutions and color depths.  Each image has an 'and' mask, which contains transparency data.

By default, the output goes to Standard Output.  If you specify *ppmdestfile*, output goes into one or more files named as follows.  If it's just one file (i.e. you specify the **-multippm** option or don't specify **-allicons**), the file name is *ppmdestfile***.ppm**.  If it's multiple files, their file names are *ppmdestfile***\_1.ppm**, *ppmdestfile***\_2.ppm**, etc.

 When you specify the **-writeands** option, the file names above are modified to include the string **xor** as in *ppmdestfile***\_xor.ppm** or *ppmdestfile***\_xor\_1.ppm**.

**winicontoppm** can convert .ico images with 1, 4, 8, 24, or 32 bits per pixel.  Before Netpbm 10.15 (April 2003), it could not handle 24 and 32.

## OPTIONS

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

- **-writeands**

  For each icon written, also write the 'and' (transparency) mask as a separate PBM file.  It's name is of the form *ppmdestfile***\_and.pbm** or *ppmdestfile***\_and\_1.pbm**.

- **-allicons**

  Extract all images from the .ico file.

  If you specify neither this nor **-bestqual**, **winicontoppm** extracts the first image.

- **-bestqual**

  Extract only the best quality (largest, then highest bpp) image from the .ico file.

  If you specify neither this nor **-allicons**, **winicontoppm** extracts the first image.

- **-multippm**

  Write all PPMs to a single file.

## SEE ALSO

[**winicontopam**(1)](/winicontopam/1.md) , [**pamtowinicon**(1)](/pamtowinicon/1.md) , [**bmptopnm**(1)](/bmptopnm/1.md) , **ppm**(1)

## AUTHOR

Copyright (C) 2000, 2003 by Lee Benfield.

## 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/winicontoppm.html**