PNG (Portable Network Graphics) Specification, Version 0.90

Revision date: 3 November, 1995

0. Status

This is a working draft of the PNG specification. It is not intended for public distribution. A public release of version 1.0 is planned shortly.

The PNG format has been frozen since the Ninth Draft, and all future changes are intended to be backwards compatible. The revisions planned for version 1.0 are simply clarifications, improvements in presentation, and additions of supporting material. Several implementations already exist, and more are in progress.

Changes since the Tenth Draft of 5 May, 1995

Issues not yet clarified in this working draft include: All these items will be completed before version 1.0 is issued.

Standardization plans

The PNG development group intends to submit the PNG format to the World Wide Web Consortium for adoption as a W3C standard. If adopted, the copyright on the PNG spec will be assigned to W3C.

An Internet RFC for PNG is also planned.

Archive sites

The latest versions of this document and related information can always be found at the PNG FTP archive site, ftp.uu.net:/graphics/png/. The maintainers of the PNG specification can be contacted by e-mail at png-info@uunet.uu.net.

At present, this document is available on the World Wide Web from http://sunsite.unc.edu/boutell/png.html, but this location may not be as permanent as the ones above.

Reference implementation and test images

A reference implementation in portable C is available from the PNG FTP archive site, ftp.uu.net:/graphics/png/src/. The reference implementation is freely usable in all applications, including commercial applications.

Test images are available from the same archive in ftp.uu.net:/graphics/png/images/.

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