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From: c315-25@cs.UAlberta.CA (Huisman Kenneth M)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Subject: help with pbmplus
Keywords: pbmplus, format conversion, gif, ilbm
Message-ID: <1991Apr11.153537.4257@cs.UAlberta.CA>
Date: 11 Apr 91 15:35:37 GMT
Sender: news@cs.UAlberta.CA (News Administrator)
Organization: University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Lines: 35

I recently ftped pbmplus for my amiga and I would like to use it to convert
a couple gifs into ilbms.  Unfortunately, the documentation that
came with pbmplus seems rather incomplete, and I am not sure if I am
running it properly.

From what I understand, you first run giftoppm and then run ppmtoilbm
correct?
I tried running giftoppm as follows:
giftoppm filename.gif

unfortunately, all it seemed to do is suck up most of my ram and then, after
a period of thought, dump a lot of garbled stuff onto the screen.  I thought
perhaps that the output had to be redirected to a file, and the garbled
stuff was actually supposed to be the output, so then I ran it like this:

giftoppm filename.gif >filename.ppm

but all it did was create a file called ">filename.ppm" and continue to dump
all the garbled characters onto the screen.

I haven't been able to find anywhere in any of the documentation what the
command line is supposed to look like for this program.  Also, I've never
let it run to the end - the garbled character printing seems to go on 
forever.  Should I just be more patient?  Does it come out right in the
end?

Can someone please help me on how to use this program, or possibly direct
me to an amiga GIF viewer/converter that is easier to use?  (I have already
seen GIFMachine, but its docs say it requires WB2.0 which I don't have).

E-mail responses would be preferred.

Ken Huisman

c315-25@cs.ualberta.ca