ART (PFS: First Publisher)
- See ART for other formats with that name.
ART is a bi-level raster image format used for clip art. It is associated with PFS: First Publisher, a desktop publishing application for DOS developed by Software Publishing Corporation.
There is a well-known "standard resolution" ART format, and a rarer "high resolution" format used by most of the ART files included with v3.0.
Contents |
Format details
[Information here was derived from various unofficial sources. It was written for the fileformats.archiveteam.org wiki.]
Standard resolution format
| Offset | Length | Field name | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 2 | left_edge | Almost always 0. An exception is the FLOWER.ART file included with the software. |
| 2 | 2 | right_edge | Width = right_edge minus left_edge. |
| 4 | 2 | top_edge | Almost always 0. |
| 6 | 2 | bottom_edge | Height = bottom_edge minus top_edge. |
| 8 | image_data | Uncompressed, with rows padded to the next 2-byte boundary. |
High resolution format
| Offset | Length | Field name | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 2 | marker | Always 0xffff. |
| 2 | 2 | X-DPI? Observed to be 300. | |
| 4 | 2 | Y-DPI? Observed to be 300. | |
| 6 | 2 | width | |
| 8 | 2 | height | |
| 10 | 2 | Unknown. Observed to be 0x0001. | |
| 12 | image_data | Each row is compressed independently with PackBits. |
After decompression, each row ends with 0, 1, or 2 padding bytes. The number differs by file, with no obvious logic to it; but decoders must figure out the bytes per row somehow. One idea is to decompress the pixels to see how many bytes you get, then divide that by the height.
Software
(Most third-party software likely only supports the uncompressed format.)
Sample files
- http://cd.textfiles.com/fantaziasampler/CLIPART/ART/
- http://cd.textfiles.com/swinnund/disk3/CLIPART/ → 1STPUB3.EXE, ARTFILE?.EXE, ART_FPUB.EXE (Self-extracting ZIP format)
- dexvert samples — image/pfsFirstPublisher
