GIFTRANS(1)

🎀 GIFTRANS(1) 🎀

okay bestie, welcome to the giftrans page from the General Commands Manual — and let me tell you, this little tool is lowkey iconic for a program from 1994. it's giving "tiny binary, main character energy." let's go 💖

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✨ NAME ✨

giftrans — transform gif from gif87 to gif89, making one color transparent

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

giftrans [options] [-o filename] filename

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🌈 DESCRIPTION 🌈

giftrans converts any GIF file into a GIF89a. periodt. ✨

and like, it does so much more than that. you can:

• set the transparent color or the background color
• change colors
• add or remove comments

plus there's also code in there to analyze GIF contents, which is honestly such a serve. 🔍💅

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💅 OPTIONS 💅

one bullet per flag, no skips, no skimming — every single one is here:

• -h — print a short help message on stdout.
• -t — specify the transparent color.
• -T — the index of the transparent color is the background color index. (same index, two jobs, multitasking queen 👑)
• -B — specify the transparent color's new value.
• -b — specify the background color.
• -g — change a color in the global color table.
• -c — add a comment.
• -C — remove the old comment.
• -l — only list the color table.
• -L — verbose output of the GIF's contents.
• -V — verbose output while converting.
• -o — redirect stdout to a file.
• -e — redirect stderr to a file.

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🎨 ABOUT COLORS 🎨

colors may be specified as an index, as an rgb.txt entry, or in the #rrggbb form.

ngl bestie, beware: shells will often consider the # character to start a comment, so you may have to escape it! 😭 don't let your shell eat your color and leave you confused.

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🌸 EXAMPLE 🌸

to convert the white background of a gif file to transparent, use:

giftrans -t #ffffff file.gif > transparentfile.gif

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💀 BUGS 💀

okay so, full transparency (pun intended), this program has been tested on a HP9000/720 with HP-UX A.08.07. in that environment, neither lint -u nor gcc -Wall produce any messages. if you encounter any errors or need to make any changes to port it to another platform, please contact me. 🫶

known bugs:

• The -B flag won't work if there's an Extension between the Global Color Table and the Image Descriptor (or Graphic Control Extension). if -V has been specified, a Warning Message will be displayed. will be fixed in 2.0. 🙈
• Always outputs GIF89a. shouldn't do this if version is newer. 💀
• The -D option may output changed data instead of original data — use with caution, best only with the -L option. ⚠️

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👑 COPYRIGHT 👑

Copyright (c) 24.2.94 by Andreas Ley <ley@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de>

Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice appears in all copies. This software is provided "as is" and without any express or implied warranties.

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📜 VERSION HISTORY 📜

Version 1.12.2 - 11.4.96

changed to GNU copyright.

Version 1.12.1 - 9.2.96

fix for multi-word color names.

Version 1.12 - 17.2.95

incorporated dumpcomment by omerzu@quantum.de (Thomas Omerzu). outputs original version if newer than GIF89a.

Version 1.11.2 - 14.12.94

incorporated OS/2 port by k.rusch@ieee.org (Klaus Johannes Rusch). different rgb.txt file for OS/2, setmode replaced by freopen for OS/2 (SAA C).

Version 1.11.1 - 11.8.94

allows for use of the -g option without the -B option.

Version 1.11 - 21.7.94

moved Plain Text Extension to the Extensions section where it belongs. accept Unknown Extension Labels. incorporated MS-DOS port by enzo@hk.net (Enzo Michelangeli). added -o and -e options to redirect stdout and stderr. added -D debug flag.

Version 1.10.2 - 22.6.94

support for -DRGBTXT flag.

Version 1.10.1 - 21.6.94

different rgb.txt file FreeBSD/386BSD.

Version 1.10 - 19.6.94

added option to change a color in the global color table. added option to change the color for the transparent color index.

Version 1.9.1 - 7.6.94

different rgb.txt files for X11 and Open Windows.

Version 1.9 - 1.6.94

fixed a bug which caused color names to be rejected.

Version 1.8 - 30.5.94

accept #rrggbb style arguments. do nothing if rgb-color not found in GIF.

Version 1.7 - 16.5.94

added -l option to only list the color table. added -L option for verbose output without creating a gif. added -b option to change the background color index. display all matching color names for color table entries. fixed a bug which caused bad color names if rgb.txt starts with whitespace. doesn't use strdup anymore. fixed =& bug on dec machines.

Version 1.6 - 5.4.94

added color names recognition.

Version 1.5 - 15.3.94

added basic verbose output to analyze GIFs.

Version 1.4 - 8.3.94

fixed off-by-one bug in Local Color table code. added option to add or remove a comment. transparency is no longer the default.

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This man file made 9.8 from documentation in the program source code by Kai Nordlund (knordlun@fltxa.helsinki.fi).

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🫶 THANKS 🫶

thanx for bug reports, ideas and fixes to:

• patricka@cs.kun.nl (Patrick Atoon)
• wes@msc.edu (Wes Barris)
• pmfitzge@ingr.com (Patrick M. Fitzgerald)
• hoesel@chem.rug.nl (frans van hoesel)
• boardman@jerry.sal.wisc.edu (Dan Boardman)
• krweiss@chip.ucdavis.edu (Ken Weiss)
• chuck@trantor.harris-atd.com (Chuck Musciano)
• heycke@camis.stanford.edu (Torsten Heycke)
• claw@spacsun.rice.edu (Colin Law)
• jwalker@eos.ncsu.edu (Joseph C. Walker)
• Bjorn.Borud@alkymi.unit.no (Bjorn Borud)
• Christopher.Vance@adfa.oz.au (CJS Vance)
• pederl@norway.hp.com (Peder Langlo)
• I.Rutson@bradford.ac.uk (Ian Rutson)
• Nicolas.Pioch@enst.fr (Nicolas Pioch)
• john@charles.CS.UNLV.EDU (John Kilburg)
• enzo@hk.net (Enzo Michelangeli)
• twv@hpwtwe0.cup.hp.com (Terry von Gease)
• k.rusch@ieee.org (Klaus Johannes Rusch)
• omerzu@quantum.de (Thomas Omerzu)
• Willem.Vermin@sara.nl (Willem Vermin)
• wjones@tc.fluke.COM (Warren Jones)

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🔗 SEE ALSO 🔗

xv(1), giftoppm(1), ppmtogif(1)

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and that's the whole page bestie 💖 this was GIFTRANS(1) from the General Commands Manual — the footer is literally just GIFTRANS(1), and this man file was made 9.8 by Kai Nordlund. slay, go make some transparent gifs. 🦋✨