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Image MIME Reference
Compressed-XCF

Compressed GIMP XCF Image

image/x-compressed-xcf
VS

North American Presentation Level Protocol Syntax

image/naplps
NAPLPS

A complete technical comparison of Compressed GIMP XCF Image and North American Presentation Level Protocol Syntax — covering compression, feature support, browser compatibility, magic bytes, and when to choose each format.

Equal browser support

Feature Support

Feature Compressed-XCF NAPLPS
Transparency (Alpha) Yes ✕ No
Animation Support Yes Yes
Progressive Loading ✕ No Yes
HDR Support Yes ✕ No
EXIF Metadata Yes ✕ No
ICC Color Profile Yes ✕ No
Compressed GIMP XCF Image
image/x-compressed-xcf
Extension
.xcf.gz.xcf.bz2.xcfgz.xcfbz2
Container Gzip or Bzip2 Archive
Compression Gzip (Deflate) / Bzip2
Algorithm
DeflateBWT (Burrows-Wheeler)
Color Depth 8-bit (Per Channel), 16-bit (Integer/Floating Point), 32-bit (Integer/Floating Point)
Developed by The GIMP Team
Released 1995
Magic Bytes
1F 8B 08 (gzip) or 42 5A 68 (bzip2)
Full Compressed-XCF reference →
North American Presentation Level Protocol Syntax
image/naplps
Extension
.nap.naplps
Container NAPLPS Byte Stream
Compression Uncompressed (Tokenized ASCII Commands)
Algorithm
None (Coordinate encoding)
Color Depth 16-color palette (Indexed from larger color spaces)
Developed by ANSI / CSA (Based on Canadian CRC's Telidon)
Released 1983
Magic Bytes
1B (Variable / ESC sequences)
Full NAPLPS reference →

Browser Support Comparison

Browser Compressed-XCF NAPLPS
Chrome Chrome
✕ ✕
Firefox Firefox
✕ ✕
Safari Safari
✕ ✕
Edge Edge
✕ ✕
IE IE (Legacy)
✕ ✕
Compressed-XCF

Compressed-XCF Strengths

  • Drastically reduces the massive file sizes of standard XCF project files, saving significant disk space
  • Preserves 100% of the non-destructive editing data (layers, masks, paths, guides) from the GIMP workspace
  • Uses standard, universally supported compression algorithms (gzip/bzip2) meaning the archive can be rescued or extracted by standard OS tools if GIMP is unavailable
Limitations
  • Increases file load and save times due to the CPU overhead required to compress and decompress the massive pixel arrays
  • Impossible for automated tools to parse metadata or dimensions without first unarchiving the payload into memory
  • File extension combinations (.xcf.gz) can confuse basic MIME sniffers which stop reading at the .gz extension
NAPLPS

NAPLPS Strengths

  • Extremely bandwidth-efficient, enabling colorful graphical interfaces over early 300 baud dial-up connections
  • Resolution-independent vector scaling allowed the exact same file to be displayed accurately on varied early PC monitors and television sets
Limitations
  • Completely obsolete and unsupported by modern web technologies
  • Relies heavily on stateful parsing and terminal emulators rather than straightforward file decoding
  • Easily misidentified by MIME sniffers as plain text or generic binary streams due to the lack of a standardized file header

When to choose which format

Compressed-XCF
Use Compressed-XCF when…
  • GIMP Multi-layer Project Archival
  • Saving disk space for complex raster edits
  • Open-source graphic design workflows
NAPLPS
Use NAPLPS when…
  • 1980s Videotex Services
  • Prodigy Online Service Graphics
  • Historical BBS Terminal Graphics
  • Legacy Teletext Broadcasts

More comparisons

Compressed-XCF vs ACES → NAPLPS vs ACES → Compressed-XCF vs APNG → NAPLPS vs APNG → Compressed-XCF vs AVCI → NAPLPS vs AVCI → Compressed-XCF vs AVCS → NAPLPS vs AVCS → Compressed-XCF vs AVIF → NAPLPS vs AVIF → All comparisons →
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