View PPM files in your browser
The plain image format of Unix tools, ray tracers and image courses. Open a PPM right here at full size and keep it as PNG. Nothing leaves your device.
Or drop it anywhere on this page
What you'll see
Your file opens at actual size, or shrunk to fit your screen.
- Actual size, or shrunk to fit
- Drag to pan • Pinch or scroll to zoom
- Fullscreen
- Export • Save as PNG or JPEG
About PPM
Jef Poskanzer made PPM for his Pbmplus tools in 1988, which carry on as Netpbm. Programs write it when they need a picture without a library: ray tracers, image courses, Linux scanners and FFmpeg frames.
A PPM is a short text header with the width, the height and the brightest value, then the pixels as red, green and blue, in bytes or written as numbers. PNM names the whole family, and PAM, its newest member, adds gray and color with alpha.
No browser shows Netpbm images. Filepeek decodes them itself, 16 bit ones included, and a file of several images as pages, and Export saves the page on show as PNG or JPEG.
Portable Pixmap
.ppm • .pnm • .pam
Format
- MIME type
- image/x-portable-pixmap
- Made by
- Jef Poskanzer
- Released
- 1988
Inside the file
- Colors
- RGB, 8 or 16 bits
- Header
- A line of text
- Pixels
- Bytes or numbers
- Transparency
- PAM only
Opens in every browser
No browser shows PPM by itself. Filepeek decodes it in Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari.
- YouChromeOpens through Filepeek
- YouEdgeOpens through Filepeek
- YouFirefoxOpens through Filepeek
- YouSafariOpens through Filepeek
Questions
How do I open a PPM file?
Drop it on this page or press Peek a PPM. It opens at full size, with nothing to install.
How do I convert PPM to PNG?
Open it, then choose Export and Save as PNG.
Does it open plain text PPMs?
Yes. A P3 file, whose pixels are written as numbers, opens like a raw P6, and so do PGM, PBM and PAM files.
Is my image uploaded?
No. It opens inside your browser and never leaves your device.