---

40.17.3 XBM Images ¶

To use XBM format, specify xbm as the image type. This image format doesn’t require an external library, so images of this type are always supported.

Additional image properties supported for the xbm image type are:

:foreground foreground

The value, foreground, should be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil for the default color. This color is used for each pixel in the XBM that is 1. The default is the frame’s foreground color.

:background background

The value, background, should be a string specifying the image background color, or nil for the default color. This color is used for each pixel in the XBM that is 0. The default is the frame’s background color.

If you specify an XBM image using data within Emacs instead of an external file, use the following three properties:

:data data

The value, data, specifies the contents of the image. There are three formats you can use for data:

• A vector of strings or bool-vectors, each specifying one line of the image. Do specify :height and :width.
• A string containing the same byte sequence as an XBM file would contain. You must not specify :height and :width in this case, because omitting them is what indicates the data has the format of an XBM file. The file contents specify the height and width of the image.
• A string or a bool-vector containing the bits of the image (plus perhaps some extra bits at the end that will not be used). It should contain at least stride * height bits, where stride is the smallest multiple of 8 greater than or equal to the width of the image. In this case, you should specify :height, :width and :stride, both to indicate that the string contains just the bits rather than a whole XBM file, and to specify the size of the image.

:width width

The value, width, specifies the width of the image, in pixels.

:height height

The value, height, specifies the height of the image, in pixels.

Note that :width and :height can only be used if passing in data that doesn’t specify the width and height (e.g., a string or a vector containing the bits of the image). XBM files usually specify this themselves, and it’s an error to use these two properties on these files. Also note that :width and :height are used by most other image formats to specify what the displayed image is supposed to be, which usually means performing some sort of scaling. This isn’t supported for XBM images.

:stride stride

The number of bool vector entries stored for each row; the smallest multiple of 8 greater than or equal to width.