XnView

XnView is an image organizer and general-purpose file manager used for viewing, converting, organizing and editing raster images, as well as general purpose file management. It comes with built-in hex inspection, batch renaming, image scanning and screen capture tools. It is licensed as freeware for private, educational and non-profit uses. For other uses, it is licensed as commercial software.

XnView

Screenshot of XnView showing a .png image with transparency
Other names	XnView Classic
Original author(s)	Pierre-Emmanuel Gougelet
Developer(s)	XnSoft
Initial release	1.05 / 1998; 26 years ago (1998)^[1] (Windows)
Stable release	2.51.6^[2]  / 20 February 2024
Written in	C, C++^[3]
Engine	GFL (Graphics File Library)^[4]
Operating system	Windows, Windows Mobile, Linux, macOS
Platform	x86, ARM, MIPS, SH3
Size	4 to 26 MB
Available in	46 languages^[5]
List of languages Afrikaans, Arabic, Basque, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Farsi, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazil), Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Welsh
Type	Image viewer Image organizer Raster graphics editor Data conversion Screen capture Basic web template system
License	Freeware for private, educational or non-profit use; otherwise commercial software
Website	www.xnview.com/en/

XnView MP

Other names	XnView Multi-Platform
Original author(s)	Pierre-Emmanuel Gougelet
Developer(s)	XnSoft
Stable release	1.6.5 / 22 February 2024; 2 months ago (2024-02-22)^[6]
Written in	C++ (Qt)
Engine	GFL (Graphics File Library)^[4]
Operating system	Windows, Linux, macOS
Platform	x86, x64
Size	53 to 114 MB
Available in	26 languages
List of languages Armenian, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian
Type	Image viewer Image organizer Raster graphics editor Data conversion Screen capture
License	Freeware for private, educational or non-profit use; otherwise commercial software
Website	www.xnview.com/en/xnviewmp/

Although originally deployed only on Unix-like systems, it is now also available for Windows, Windows Mobile and Pocket PC.^[7] The extended version of XnView, called XnView MP, is available for Windows, macOS and Linux.^[8]

XnView has received five cows from Tucows.^[9] In 2006 Sveriges Television (SVT) recommended XnView in their High Definition Multi Format Test Set.^[10] Research papers about DICOM and digital watermarking used XnView for image processing.^[11][12]

Features

XnView is customisable and multi-lingual. XnView can read more than 500 image file formats, some audio and video file formats, and write 50 image file formats.^[13] XnView also supports ICC profiles in JPEG, PNG and TIFF files. It doesn't respect loop settings on animated files, however, and will infinitely loop them, regardless.^[14] Classic XnView can read image formats resulting in more than 32 bits per pixel, but write support is limited to 32 bits.

XnView can show IPTC, Exif and XMP metadata, and write IPTC metadata (It can also do batch writing of IPTC metadata).^[15] It can write XMP metadata partly together with IPTC metadata. It also supports file comments (4DOS descript.ion). XnView can search files that have the same filename or data, and can search for similar graphics as well.

The display of the histogram of a picture is possible. Scripts can be created to convert, manipulate and rename a batch of images in one go. Creation of advanced slide shows is also possible. Lossless (without new encoding) turning, flipping and cropping of JPEG files is supported.

Typical image editing tools are included, for instance color and size manipulation, several filters and effects. XnView supports .8bf Photoshop plugins such as the Harry's Filters 3.0 included in the full version. Support for most raw image formats is based on dcraw.

Support for vector graphics (EPS, PS, PDF) can be integrated with Ghostscript. Classic XnView does not support Unicode, and SVG requires a commercial CAD plugin. These features are available in the multi-platform edition XnView MP based on Qt.^[8]

Classic XnView is also distributed in the PortableApps format.^[16] XnView 2.13 (2013) was the last version for Windows platforms older than Windows XP. Version 2.30 released in 2015 supports the Netpbm PAM format, can read Better Portable Graphics, and offers an add-on for Imgur uploads.^[17] As of 2018 XnView also supported HEIF and FLIF.^[18]

Related software

The author published various other products using the classic or the multi-platform XnView code base, some examples are:

• XnView MP — the designated successor to classic XnView which is faster, has macOS and Linux editions and has Unicode support; the current version 1.6.5^[8]
• Nview — the DOS4GW predecessor of XnView^[19]
• NConvert — command-line batch convert tool (Linux, macOS, Windows); the current version 7.163
• XnConvert — GUI batch convert tool (Linux, macOS, Windows); the current version 1.99
• Xn — apps for iOS and Android (XnRetro, Sketch Me!, Gif Me!, Hypocam, etc.)
• XnShell — File Explorer / Windows Explorer shell extension (32-bit or 64-bit); the current version 4.1.10
• XnResize — image resizer (Linux, macOS, Windows); the current version 1.0
• XnRetro — used to assign vintage or instant effect for images (Linux, macOS, Windows); the current version 1.30
• XnSketch — transform images into cartoon or sketch (Linux, macOS, Windows); the current version 1.20
• GFL-SDK — free developer library used in tools by third parties^[4]

See also

• Comparison of image viewers

References

1. Pierre-Emmanuel Gougelet (2008-07-23). "XnView Classic 1.05". XnView.com. Retrieved 2022-11-01.
2. "XnView Classic 2.51.6". 20 February 2024. Retrieved 20 February 2024.
3. Pierre-Emmanuel Gougelet (2005-08-17). "Programming Language". XnView.com. Retrieved 2021-11-05.
4. . XnView.com. 2011. Archived from the original on 2017-07-20. Retrieved 2021-04-06.
5. "Translators". XnView.com. 2010-04-27. Retrieved 2021-11-05.
6. Pierre-Emmanuel Gougelet (2024-02-22). "XnView MP 1.6.5". XnView.com. Retrieved 2024-03-20.
7. "Downloads for older platforms". XnView.com. Retrieved 2017-04-04.
8. "Powerful Image Viewer - XnViewMP". XnView.com. 2022-10-09. Retrieved 2022-10-25.
9. Michael E, Callahan (2007-09-05). "Picks: Reviews of programs that convert graphics, work with audio files". Tucows. Retrieved 2015-02-20.
10. Lars Haglund (February 2006). "The SVT High Definition Multi Format Test Set" (PDF). SVT. Retrieved 2014-02-23. For viewing the original 'sgi16' files we recommend the use of XnView
11. Edward J. Escott, David Rubinstein (September 2003). "Free DICOM Image Viewing and Processing Software for Your Desktop Computer: What's Available and What It Can Do for You". Radiographics. 23 (5). RSNA: 1341–1357. doi:10.1148/rg.235035047. PMID 12975521.
12. E Ganic, AM Eskicioglu (2004). Robust DWT-SVD domain image watermarking: embedding data in all frequencies. Proceedings of the 2004 workshop on Multimedia and security. ACM. pp. 166–174. ISBN 978-1-58113-854-2.
13. "Supported file formats". XnView.com. Retrieved 2021-11-04.
14. "1.4.3 - viewer - gif always looped | frame controls stuck - XnView Software".
15. "Extending IPTC / EXIF / XMP batch editing". XnView.com. 2006. Retrieved 2017-04-04.
16. "XnView Portable". PortableApps. 2017-05-24. Retrieved 2017-09-07.
17. Pierre-Emmanuel Gougelet (2015-02-19). . XnView.com. Archived from the original on 2015-02-20. Retrieved 2017-09-15. BPG format read support
18. Pierre-Emmanuel Gougelet (2018-05-31). . XnView.com. Archived from the original on 2018-12-19. Retrieved 2018-12-19.
19. "XnView old Download". 2002-12-03. Retrieved 2017-04-04. Nview/Nconvert & View2 v3.87

External links

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to XnView.

• Official website
• XnView metadata How-To, August 2017. In: CarlSeibert.com