X-Face

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File Format
Name X-Face
Ontology
Extension(s) .face, .xface
Spec https://purl.org/x-face-spec
Released ~1990

X-Face is a compressed image format that can be placed in an email or Usenet newsgroup message header. It is expected to contain the sender's picture or avatar. It is a 48×48 bi-level image. The format appears to be fairly complex, and probably uses arithmetic coding.

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Discussion

Although X-Face data is often expected to be stored in a file, there isn't really a standard X-Face file format. The main thing to be aware of is that sometimes the "X-Face:" header name is stored in the file, and sometimes it is not. Different software has different requirements.

File extensions .face and .xface have both been suggested. Sometimes, X-Face data will be in a file named ".face" in the user's home directory.

Most or all X-Face code is based on James Ashton's Compface software, and Compface's code is fairly opaque. A specification has been written by reverse-engineering Compface.

Compface intermediate format

The Compface software by default converts X-Face to and from the Ikon format. It only supports 48×48 images with a bit depth of 1. Most implementations use 16-bit words but one implementation[1] uses 8-bit words.

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