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In computing, PPM can refer to several different terms, most commonly Pages Per Minute or Portable Pixmap Format. Other uses exist in specific software or fields.

Pages per minute (PPM). This is a metric used to measure the printing speed of a printer or copier.

How it's used: A higher PPM indicates that a printer can produce more pages in a minute. Manufacturers often provide separate ratings for black-and-white and color printing, with black-and-white typically being faster.

Limitations: The stated PPM can be misleading, as it often measures the maximum speed under ideal conditions, such as printing low-quality, simple text pages. The actual speed can be slower depending on factors like print quality, color usage, and the complexity of the documents (which may include graphics and images).

Portable Pixmap (PPM) file format. This is a specific type of uncompressed, text-based image file format.

Details: It is part of the larger Netpbm toolkit, along with Portable Bitmap (PBM) and Portable Graymap (PGM) formats. The format stores basic color image information in plain text, making it easily transferable between different platforms. Because it is uncompressed, PPM files are very large and are rarely used for storage today. Instead, they often serve as an intermediate format for converting images between different formats.