.TH pbmtoascii 1 "20 March 1992"
.SH NAME
pbmtoascii - convert a portable bitmap into ASCII graphics
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B pbmtoascii
.RB [ -1x2 | -2x4 ]
.RI [ pbmfile ]
.SH DESCRIPTION
Reads a portable bitmap as input.
Produces a somewhat crude ASCII graphic as output.
.PP
Note that there is no asciitopbm tool - this transformation is one-way.
.SH OPTIONS
The
.B -1x2
and
.B -2x4
flags give you two alternate ways for the bits to get mapped to characters.
With
.BR 1x2 ,
the default, each character represents a group of 1 bit across by 2 bits down.
With
.BR -2x4 ,
each character represents 2 bits across by 4 bits down.
With the 1x2 mode you can see the individual bits, so it's useful for
previewing small bitmaps on a non-graphics terminal.
The 2x4 mode lets you display larger bitmaps on a standard 80-column display,
but it obscures bit-level details.
2x4 mode is also good for displaying
graymaps - "pnmscale -width 158 | pgmnorm | pgmtopbm -thresh"
should give good results.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
pbm(5)
.SH AUTHOR
Copyright (C) 1988, 1992 by Jef Poskanzer.
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