XBM

File Format
Name	XBM
Ontology	Electronic File Formats Graphics XBM
Extension(s)	.xbm, .bm
MIME Type(s)	image/x-xbitmap
PRONOM	x-fmt/207, x-fmt/299

XBM (X BitMap) is a file format for bi-level raster images, originally associated with the X Window System. It was, and to some extent still is, widely supported by graphics software.

An XBM file is plain text, and doubles as a fragment of C programming code. The format is very inefficient in size, but it can be useful as a simple way to embed an image into a C program.

See also

• XPM

Specifications

• Manipulating Bitmaps section of Xlib - C Language X Interface: X Consortium Standard

Software

• X Window System: XReadBitmapFile & XWriteBitmapFile in libX11
• Netpbm: pbmtoxbm, xbmtopbm
• ImageMagick
• Konvertor
• XnView
• GIMP

Sample files

• http://www.fileformat.info/format/xbm/sample/index.htm
• http://ftp.x.org/pub/individual/data/xbitmaps-1.1.1.tar.gz
• http://cd.textfiles.com/blackcrawling/ICONS/

Links

• XBM File Format Summary, from the Encyclopedia of Graphics File Formats
• Wikipedia article
• Image describing XBM format