PNG(5) File Formats Manual PNG(5)
NAME
png - Portable Network Graphics (PNG) format
DESCRIPTION
PNG (Portable Network Graphics) is an extensible file format for the lossless, portable, well-compressed stor‐
age of raster images. PNG provides a patent-free replacement for GIF and can also replace many common uses of
TIFF. Indexed-color, grayscale, and truecolor images are supported, plus an optional alpha channel. Sample
depths range from 1 to 16 bits.
PNG is designed to work well in online viewing applications, such as the World Wide Web, so it is fully
streamable with a progressive display option. PNG is robust, providing both full file integrity checking and
fast, simple detection of common transmission errors. Also, PNG can store gamma and chromaticity data for
improved color matching on heterogeneous platforms.
SEE ALSO
libpng(3), libpngpf(3), zlib(3), deflate(5), and zlib(5)
PNG specification (second edition), November 2003:
<http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/REC-PNG-20031110/ PNG 1.2 specification, July 1999:
http://www.libpng.org/pub/png
PNG 1.0 specification, October 1996:
RFC 2083
ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc2083.txt
or (as a W3C Recommendation) at
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-png.html
AUTHORS
This man page: Glenn Randers-Pehrson
Portable Network Graphics (PNG) Specification (Second Edition) Information technology - Computer graphics and
image processing - Portable Network Graphics (PNG): Functional specification. ISO/IEC 15948:2003 (E) (Novem‐
ber 10, 2003): David Duce and others.
Portable Network Graphics (PNG) Specification Version 1.2 (July 8, 1999): Glenn Randers-Pehrson and others
(png-list).
Portable Network Graphics (PNG) Specification Version 1.0 (October 1, 1996): Thomas Boutell and others (png-
list).
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
This man page is Copyright (c) 1998-2006 Glenn Randers-Pehrson. See png.h for conditions of use and distribu‐
tion.
The PNG Specification (Second Edition) is Copyright (c) 2003 W3C. (MIT, ERCIM, Keio), All Rights Reserved.
The PNG-1.2 specification is copyright (c) 1999 Glenn Randers-Pehrson. See the specification for conditions
of use and distribution.
The PNG-1.0 specification is copyright (c) 1996 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. See the specification
for conditions of use and distribution.
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