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The PNM Format
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pnm
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Updated: 03 October 2003
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Table Of Contents
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NAME
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pnm - Netpbm superformat
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DESCRIPTION
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The PNM format is just an abstraction of the PBM, PGM, and PPM
formats.  I.e. the name "PNM" refers collectively to
PBM, PGM, and PPM.
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The name "PNM" is an acronym derived from "Portable
Any Map." This derivation makes more sense if you consider
it in the context of the other Netpbm format names: PBM, PGM, and PPM.
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The more general term "Netpbm format" refers to the PNM
formats plus PAM.
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PNM is principally used with Netpbm.
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Note that besides being names of formats, PBM, PGM, PPM, and PNM
are also classes of programs.  A PNM program can take PBM, PGM, or PPM
input.  That's nothing special -- a PPM program can too.  But a PNM
program can often produce multiple output formats as well, and a PNM
program can see the difference between PBM, PGM, and PPM input and
respond to each differently whereas a PPM program sees everything as
if it were PPM.  This is discussed more in the
description of the netpbm programs.
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"pnm" also appears in the names of the most general Netpbm library routines, some of which aren't even
related to the PNM format.
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SEE ALSO
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ppm,
pgm,
pbm,
pam,
programs that process PNM,
libnetpbm
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Table Of Contents
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DESCRIPTION
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SEE ALSO
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