PrintPartner

File Format
Name	PrintPartner
Ontology	Electronic File Formats Graphics PrintPartner
Extension(s)	.gph
Released	1990

PrintPartner is a desktop publishing program for MS-DOS. It was developed by Acropolis Software, and released mainly as freeware. It has a native .GPH graphics format.

GPH format details

This information is based on reverse engineering and guesswork. It may not be correct.

File:

Field name	Type	Details
ID/comments	char[]	ASCII text
ID terminator	byte	= 0x1a
image_sequence	Image[]	See below

Image:

Field name	Type	Details
name_len	byte	Expected to be from 1 to 20.
name	char[20]	ASCII text, padded with spaces
cmpr_type	byte	1=uncompressed, 2="RLE8", 3="RLE4"
height	byte	Image height in pixels
rowbytes	byte	width = rowbytes×8. The width is always a multiple of 8 pixels. Unused columns are expected to have all-white pixels.
image_data	byte[]	The size of this element must be calculated, in order to locate the next image. The way to do that depends on cmpr_type (see below).

Uncompressed format

1 bit per pixel, white is 0. There is no header, or row padding. The size of the image_data element is height×rowbytes bytes.

RLE8 format

This is a byte-oriented compression scheme. It has a 2-byte header containing the number of compressed bytes. Add 2 to this value to get the size in bytes of the image_data element. After decompression, the data is in the "uncompressed" format described above.

Code byte (N)	Instructions
N ≤ 127	Emit the next N bytes literally.
N ≥ 128	Emit the next byte N−128 times.

RLE4 format

This is a pixel-oriented compression scheme. There is a 2-byte header containing the number of 4-bit "nibbles". Each nibble encodes a run of white or black pixels. To calculate the size of the image_data element, divide the number of nibbles by 2, rounding up, and add 2.

Start with an all-white canvas.

Code nibble (N)	Instructions
N ≤ 7	Leave the next N pixels white.
N ≥ 8	Make the next N−8 pixels black.

Identification

GPH files apparently start with some ASCII text that begins "PrintPartner Art".

Software

• PrintPartner
  • PRNTPTNR.ZIP - v1.1
  • PP20.ZIP - v2.0-1992-08-03
  • PP20.ZIP - v2.0-1992-08-18
• Deark

Sample files

• Some of the files at http://cd.textfiles.com/powerpakgold/GRAPHC_F/, such as PP_ANML1.ZIP - See the index.
• Some graphics are included with the PrintPartner software listed above.
• dexvert samples — archive/printPartnerGraphics