NAME

       pbmtoescp2 - convert a PBM image to a ESC/P2 printer file

SYNOPSIS

       pbmtoescp2

       [-compress=compressionmode] [-resolution={180|360|720}] [-stripeheight=n] [-formfeed] [-raw] [pbmfile]

       All  options  can be abbreviated to their shortest unique prefix.  You may use two hyphens instead of one
       to designate an option.  You may use either white space or equals signs between an option  name  and  its
       value.

DESCRIPTION

       This program is part of Netpbm(1).

       pbmtoescp2  reads  a  PBM image as input.  It produces an ESC/P2 raster graphic printer control stream as
       output.

        This program creates an output that is printable on Epson printers that understand  the  ESC/P2  printer
       control  language  (e.g.  the  Stylus  models).  For older Epson 9-pin dot matrix printers, which use the
       ESC/P protocol, see pbmtoepson.

       The printed output has one pixel for each pixel of the input image, except that it is padded  up  to  the
       stripe  size  (see  -stripeheight option) vertically and to a multiple of 8 columns horizontally.  Before
       Netpbm 10.72 (September 2015), the output is instead truncated to those boundaries.

       Input is read from file pbmfile if specified, otherwise from stdin. Output is written to stdout.

OPTIONS

       In addition to the options common to all programs based on libnetpbm (most notably  -quiet,  see   Common
       Options ), pbmtoescp2 recognizes the following command line options:

       -compress=compressionmode
              This  determines  the  compression  mode  that  pbmtoescp2  uses  in its output.  Valid values for
              compressionmode are 0 and 1.  -compress=0 results in a printer control  stream  with  uncompressed
              raster  graphic  data.  -compress=1 results in a printer control stream with RLE compressed raster
              graphic data (RLE means Run Length Encoding).  The default is -compress=1.

       -resolution=dpi
              This determines the horizontal and the vertical  print  resolution  set  in  the  printer  control
              stream.   Another  way of looking at it is a declaration of what the resolution of the input image
              is (PBM images don't have inherent resolution).  Valid values for dpi are 180, 360, and 720.   See
              hints  for more information on this.

              The default is -resolution=360.

              Before Netpbm 10.72 (September 2015), 720 is not valid.

       -stripeheight=n
              This option controls the height in lines of the stripes in the output.

              The valid stripe heights in the printer language are 1, 8, and 24, but it is capable of expressing
              any  height  up  to 255 and pbmtoescp2 accepts any value in the range 1-255.  It issues a warning,
              though, if you choose something other than 1, 8, or 24.

              The default is 24.

              This option was new in Netpbm 10.72 (September 2015).  Before that, the stripe size is always 24.

       -formfeed
              This option causes pbmtoescp2 to place a formfeed command at the end of the output.

              This option was new in Netpbm 10.72 (September 2015).

       -raw   This option causes pbmtoescp2 to generate only the data blocks.   It  does  not  generate  printer
              commands to set up the output (for example, setting the line spacing).

              You can use this to insert graphics into a larger printer command stream.

              This option was new in Netpbm 10.72 (September 2015).

HINTS

       RLE  compresses  very  well bitmaps of line drawings, preferably horizontal oriented contents like texts,
       sheets of music, etc.  However, bitmaps derived from photographs are  not  ideal  for  RLE.   In  extreme
       cases,  when  no  byte  repetitions  occur in the input, the result will be even slightly bigger than the
       input.  To avoid this, use compression mode 0 to switch off RLE.

       Each pixel in the input PBM image becomes one dot in the printed output.  Therefore, you must  make  sure
       the  width and height of the input are appropriate for the print resolution you choose and the print area
       you want.  E.g. if you print at 180 dpi and want the image to print as 8 inches by 10, you must supply  a
       PBM  that  is  1440 pixels wide by 1800 pixels high.  You can adjust the size of the input with pamscale,
       pamstretch, pbmreduce, or pamenlarge.

SEE ALSO

       escp2topbm(1), pbmtoepson(1), pamscale(1), pamstretch(1), pbmreduce(1), pamenlarge(1), pbm(1)

AUTHOR

       Copyright (C) 2003 by Ulrich Walcher (u.walcher@gmx.de).

HISTORY

       pbmtoescp2 was added to Netpbm in Release 10.18 (August 2003); it was created around the same time.

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/pbmtoescp2.html

netpbm documentation                              14 July 2015                         Pbmtoescp2 User Manual(1)