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Image MIME Reference
NAPLPS

North American Presentation Level Protocol Syntax

image/naplps
VS

X Pixmap

image/x-xpixmap
XPM

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

Equal browser support

Feature Support

Feature NAPLPS XPM
Transparency (Alpha) ✕ No Yes
Animation Support Yes ✕ No
Progressive Loading Yes ✕ No
HDR Support ✕ No ✕ No
EXIF Metadata ✕ No ✕ No
ICC Color Profile ✕ No ✕ No
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 →
X Pixmap
image/x-xpixmap
Extension
.xpm
Container C Source Code Header (.c / .h)
Compression Uncompressed (Source Code)
Algorithm
None
Color Depth Indexed Color (Custom Palette with RGB and Alpha 'None')
Developed by Daniel Dardailler and Colas Nahaboo (Bull / X Consortium)
Released 1989
Magic Bytes
2F 2A 20 58 50 4D 20 2A 2F (ASCII '/* XPM */')
Full XPM reference →

Browser Support Comparison

Browser NAPLPS XPM
Chrome Chrome
✕ ✕
Firefox Firefox
✕ ✕
Safari Safari
✕ ✕
Edge Edge
✕ ✕
IE IE (Legacy)
✕
✓
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
XPM

XPM Strengths

  • Can be compiled directly into C or C++ source code without requiring an external asset loading mechanism
  • Human-readable palette mapping allows developers to inspect, modify, or hand-craft icons directly within a text editor
  • Native support for color palettes and transparency via the 'None' keyword
Limitations
  • Extremely inefficient storage structure for large images, resulting in massive file bloat compared to binary formats like PNG
  • Completely obsolete and unsupported in modern web browsers
  • Parsing overhead requires compiling or interpreting text-based color tables at runtime

When to choose which format

NAPLPS
Use NAPLPS when…
  • 1980s Videotex Services
  • Prodigy Online Service Graphics
  • Historical BBS Terminal Graphics
  • Legacy Teletext Broadcasts
XPM
Use XPM when…
  • X Window System (X11) Application Icons and Cursors
  • Embedded C/C++ Firmware Color UI Assets
  • Early Linux Desktop Environment Themes

More comparisons

NAPLPS vs ACES → XPM vs ACES → NAPLPS vs APNG → XPM vs APNG → NAPLPS vs AVCI → XPM vs AVCI → NAPLPS vs AVCS → XPM vs AVCS → NAPLPS vs AVIF → XPM vs AVIF → All comparisons →
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