All about PBM Files

The PBM file type is primarily associated with Photoshop.

PBM	File extension: PBM
	File type:	black and white bitmap

What is a PBM file

PBM files mostly belong to Photoshop by Adobe. PBM is the filename extension of black and white images stored in the Portable Bitmap format created by Jef Poskanzer in the 1980s. PBM format allows computer users to format monochrome bitmaps as ASCII text that can be embedded in emails. The file begins with a two-byte magic number (P1) that identifies the file type, followed by whitespace, dimensions (width and height) delimited by a space, and a matrix of pixel values where 1 denotes black and 0 denotes white. For example, the content of an ASCII-based PBM image of letter "I" may look as follows:

P1
# A comment 
6 6 # these are the dimensions
001100
001100
001100
001100
001100
001100

The binary variant of PBM files allocate 1 bit to each pixel, hence, its size increases by 1 byte for every 8 pixels added to the image.

How to open a PBM file

You need a suitable software like Photoshop to open a PBM file. Without proper software you will receive a Windows message "How do you want to open this file?" or "Windows cannot open this file" or a similar Mac/iPhone/Android alert. If you cannot open your PBM file correctly, try to right-click or long-press the file. Then click "Open with" and choose an application. You can also display a PBM file directly in the browser:. Just drag the file onto this browser window and drop it.

Online PBM File Viewer

Choose your .pbm file to view this image

or drag and drop it here

Online File Viewer

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How to convert a PBM file to JPG, PNG, SVG, PDF, ...

1. To do so, click the "Choose your .pbm file to view this image" button above.
2. After your file is opened in browser,
3. click "Save as..." in the menu.
4. Then choose the image format (e.g. JPG, PNG, TIFF, PDF, ...) you want.
5. Download the converted file.

PBM file format:

A file format defines how the data in the file is structured. A file format is determined by the file extension and signature, so JPEG images have the extension .jpg and the first bytes in the file are ÿØÿ. Frequently, however, one file extension is used by different programs for different file formats, and one file format for different file extensions. So a detailed analysis of a file is vital in order to determine the format and the associated program. Below you will find our evaluation of the PBM files:

The PBM file ending is used by different programs with different formats. The following file formats are most commonly found in PBM files:

• 55% of all PBM files are Portable BitMap files. The contents of these files can even be read by a human. The files are on average 4 KB in size and range from 80 bytes to 520 KB. The file type is very old but is also used today. The file name Test.pbm is typical for these files. Files like these have the following tags: image and bild.
• 5% of all PBM files have the same signature P6 . If you open these files in a text editor, you will see only illegible characters. The files are often between 49 KB and 8 MB in size. Files like these are about logo.

All the rest of the PBM files (40%) have different formats. These files sometimes refer to logo. Just click the "Choose your .pbm file to view this image" button on this page to find out what your PBM file is.