Presets

A preset is one slice on the wheel (when it fits your files), one tile in the full panel, and one id on the command line. Roue ships with the presets below. You can turn any of them off in Preferences > Presets, change them, or add your own.

Run roue list to see them on your machine, or roue list --for FILE to see the ones that fit a file.

Built-in presets#

Images#

Id	Name	Takes	Gives	What it does
`jpg`	JPG	any image except JPG	`.jpg`	Photos that open everywhere. Transparent areas become white.
`png`	PNG	any image except PNG	`.png`	Lossless, keeps transparency. Good for screenshots and graphics.
`webp`	WebP	any image except WebP, SVG	`.webp`	Small files for the web, with transparency.
`avif`	AVIF	any image except AVIF, SVG	`.avif`	Next-generation format, the smallest files at the same quality.
`resize-half`	Half size	any image except SVG, GIF	same format, `(50%)`	Scale the image down to 50%.
`resize-1080`	1080 px wide	any image except SVG, GIF	same format, `(1080px)`	Shrink wide images to 1080 pixels across. Smaller images are left as is.
`resize-double`	Double size	any image except GIF	`.png`, `(2x)`	Scale up to 200%. Vector images are re-rendered sharp.
`compress-image`	Compress	any image except SVG, GIF	`.jpg`, `(compressed)`, only if smaller	Smaller JPG at quality 75. Kept only if it's actually smaller.
`strip-metadata`	Remove metadata	JPG, PNG, WebP, HEIC, HEIF, AVIF, TIFF	same format, `(clean)`	Drop location, camera and date details before sharing.

Video#

Id	Name	Takes	Gives	What it does
`mp4`	MP4	any video	`.mp4`	H.264 + AAC, plays on every phone, browser and chat app.
`gif`	GIF	any video	`.gif`	Looping GIF at 15 fps, up to 720 px wide. Great for READMEs.
`webm`	WebM	any video except WebM	`.webm`	VP9 + Opus, open formats for the web.
`share-10mb`	Under 10 MB	any video	`.mp4`, `(10MB)`	Fits free chat upload limits (Discord). Sized with a two-pass encode.
`share-25mb`	Under 25 MB	any video	`.mp4`, `(25MB)`	Fits most email attachment limits.
`compress-video`	Smaller video	any video	`.mp4`, `(small)`, only if smaller	720p H.264 at a lower bitrate. Kept only if it's actually smaller.
`mute`	Mute	any video	same format, `(muted)`	Remove the sound. The picture is copied untouched, so it's instant.

Audio#

Id	Name	Takes	Gives	What it does
`mp3`	MP3	any audio, any video except MP3	`.mp3`	Plays anywhere. Also pulls the soundtrack out of a video.
`opus`	Opus	any audio, any video	`.opus`	Tiny files that keep voices clear. Ideal for voice notes and podcasts.
`wav`	WAV	any audio, any video except WAV	`.wav`	Uncompressed audio for editors and samplers.
`flac`	FLAC	any audio, any video except FLAC	`.flac`	Lossless and smaller than WAV.
`normalize`	Even out volume	any audio	same format, `(normalized)`	Normalise loudness (EBU R128) so quiet and loud recordings match.

Documents#

Id	Name	Takes	Gives	What it does
`pdf`	PDF	DOC, RTF, old Office files, DOCX/XLSX/PPTX, OpenDocument, Markdown, reStructuredText, Org, plain text, CSV	`.pdf`	Word, Excel, PowerPoint, LibreOffice and Markdown files to PDF.
`docx`	Word	ODT, RTF, DOC, Markdown, reStructuredText, Org, HTML	`.docx`	Markdown, OpenDocument and RTF to .docx.
`html`	Web page	Markdown, reStructuredText, Org	`.html`	Markdown to a single self-contained HTML file.
`compress-pdf`	Compress PDF	PDF	`.pdf`, `(compressed)`, only if smaller	Shrink scans and image-heavy PDFs for email. Kept only if smaller.
`pdf-to-png`	Pages to PNG	PDF	folder of `.png`, `(pages)`	One PNG image per page, in a new folder.
`pdf-to-text`	Text	PDF	`.txt`	Pull the text out of a PDF (no OCR yet).

How a preset decides what it takes#

Each preset lists MIME patterns it accepts, like image/*, and some it rejects, like image/jpeg for the JPG preset (converting a JPG to JPG would be pointless).

Roue works out a file's type from its extension first, then from its content when the extension is unknown.
When you drop several files, a preset is offered only if it takes all of them. The wheel shows only those, and in the panel the other tiles fade out.
Presets for the file's own kind come first: a video lists video presets before the audio ones that can extract its soundtrack.
The wheel shows the first seven; the rest are under More…. For a video, that's MP4, GIF, WebM, Under 10 MB, Under 25 MB, Smaller video and Mute, with the audio presets one click away.
If a drop mixes kinds, files the preset can't take are skipped with a note, and the rest are converted.

Where results go#

Results land next to the original, named after it:

A different format keeps the name: IMG_2041.HEIC → IMG_2041.jpg.
A same-format preset adds a suffix: photo.png → photo (50%).png.
If the name is taken, Roue counts up: photo (2).jpg, photo (3).jpg… Nothing is ever overwritten.
Folder presets (like Pages to PNG) create a new folder: report (pages)/page-001.png.
If the original's folder is read-only (a camera, a mounted disk image), results go to your Downloads folder instead, and Roue says so.
You can send every result to one folder in Preferences > Results, or with roue convert -o FOLDER.

"Only if smaller"#

Compression presets are marked only if smaller. If the result isn't smaller than the original, Roue throws it away and tells you the original was kept. You never end up with a "compressed" file that's bigger.

Turning presets off#

Preferences > Presets has a switch for every preset. Turned-off presets disappear from the wheel and the panel. They still work from the command line, and roue list --all shows them.

The same list lives in ~/.config/roue/settings.yaml:

disabled_presets:
  - webm
  - pdf-to-text