PNG to BMP3 using mogrify

[pendel]

I've got a series of PNG images that I need to convert to BMP version 3. I have a windows app that won't tolerate BMP in version 4.

I've read the BMP info and I can successfully use convert to achieve the desired result, but I can't seem to find a way to do the same using mogrify. I've got hundreds of images to convert, so mogrify batch conversion would be highly desirable....

This works:

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convert test1.png BMP3:test.bmp

This doesn't:

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mogrify -format BMP3 test*.png

(It just produces files with a BMP3 suffix, like test1.BMP3).

It seems that I need to use

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mogrify -format bmp test*.png

but with some other switch to force BMP3 output?

Any help greatly appreciated...

[pendel]

It seems the test1.BMP3 file that is produced is in a valid BMP3 format, so it's just the file extension that is invalid.

So, I can do my batch conversion, and then batch rename by doing this:

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mogrify -format BMP3 test*.png
mogrify -format bmp test*.BMP3

But that's going to take twice as long... Is there a way to do it with a single command/pass?

[snibgo]

If I understand correctly, your second command uses mogrify just to rename the files, from *.BMP3 to *.bmp.

Your shell will have a command to do this much faster, eg in Windows:

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ren *.BMP3 *.bmp

[pendel]

Thanks snibgo,

Yes, I was aware of the ren command, and have used it to solve my problem. I was showing the second mogrify command to emphasize the fact that the -format switch is applying the right format in each command.

There is a difference between file format and file extension... That's why the convert command lets you use BMP3:test1.bmp to define the format AND the file extension.

It seems the mogrify command lacks the ability to define the format AND the extension - or is there a switch I don't know about?

I tried:

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mogrify -format BMP3:bmp test*.png

but I just get an invalid 0KB file with a BMP3 extension, without any notification from IM that the format string, and resulting file, are invalid.

[snibgo]

As far as I know, mogrify can't specify the file extension independently of the format. But I don't use mogrify (or BMP) much.

For mogrify options, see http://www.imagemagick.org/script/mogrify.php

[glennrp]

I've patched the SVN repository with a new "-define bmp:format=bmp2|bmp3|bmp4" option, which will appear in
ImageMagick-6.8.6-9. This can be used with mogrify, where the "bmpN:" prefix is not available for controlling
the output format without also changing the filename extension.

In your case, you'd use

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mogrify -format bmp -define bmp:format=bmp3 test*.png

to create a bunch of test*.bmp files in BMP3 format.