CPC File

What are CPC files and how to open them

Are you having problems opening a CPC file or are you simply curious about its contents? We're here to explain the properties of these files and provide you with software that can open or handle your CPC files.

What is a CPC file?

A .CPC file is a Cartesian Perceptual Compression Image Bitmap file.

Cartesian Perceptual Compression Image Bitmap format is a proprietary image format developed by Cartesian Products, designed for highly efficient storage of scanned black-and-white (bitonal) document images, especially pages of text or mixed text and halftone content. It compresses a document's raster bitmap so that whole multi-page scanned books or reports can take up far less space, typically many times smaller than TIFF Group 4 bitonal TIFFs. The format is intended both for final delivery (archival, web distribution) and as a middle-stage in document-processing systems.

Compression using this format is lossy: after decompression, the image may differ slightly from the scanned bitmap in ways that are visually imperceptible. It supports only black-and-white (one bit per pixel) imagery; no colour or greyscale. Because of its extreme efficiency with bitonal document images, files are frequently only between one-twentieth and one-thirtieth the size of equivalent images compressed with CCITT Group 4. Its performance increases (better compression ratios) as document length increases. The format requires specific software from Cartesian Products for compression; viewing and decompression are available in freely distributed viewers or SDKs.

The format begins with a signature (magic number) identifying it: the first three bytes are the ASCII characters "CPC" followed by the byte 0xB2 at offset zero.

How to open CPC files

Important: Different programs may use files with the CPC file extension for different purposes, so unless you are sure which format your CPC file is, you may need to try a few different programs.

While we have not verified the apps ourselves yet, our users have suggested five different CPC openers which you will find listed below.

Last updated: September 2, 2026

Various apps that use files with this extension

These apps are known to open certain types of CPC files. Remember, different programs may use CPC files for different purposes, so you may need to try out a few of them to be able to open your specific file.

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File.org helps thousands of users every day, and we would love to hear from you if you have additional information about CPC file formats, example files, or compatible programs. Please use the links below or email us at submit@file.org to discuss further.