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Adding Presets Custom and Advanced Custom Preset Noteworthy Presets Creating a "Passthru" Preset

Preset Settings

Presets are the core of Permute. They represent pre-configured formats into which you can convert your files. As there are over 50 different presets available in Permute, not all of them are listed by default.

You can customize the list of presets, temporarily disable them, add custom or remove unnecessary ones in Settings > Presets. To add a new preset use the Add button in the toolbar. To rename them, edit the name in the list. To remove or duplicate the preset, use the options menu on each preset listed.

Adding Presets

When you click on the option to add a preset, you are presented with a sheet window that has several options. The first option is type - select the type of the preset that you want to add, then select the preset and name it.

Custom and Advanced Custom Preset

A special option in the type list is Custom and Advanced Custom. Custom preset allows you to create a custom preset - you specify the container, video and audio formats. While Permute does provide some integrity checks, it’s an advanced option that requires some knowledge about what formats are compatible with what containers. Advanced Custom preset is a next level. It allows you to tap directly into the raw FFmpeg power and offers you a list of encoders to choose from. You need to specify the exact FFmpeg arguments to be passed to those encoders. While this allows a great level of customization, please note that this is a very advanced option that requires deeper knowledge of FFmpeg commands. Permute does not do any integrity checks and runs the raw commands. ⚠️ Warning: this is a very advanced option and can easily lead to conversion errors as not all containers support all formats.

Noteworthy Presets

There are some presets that you might either miss or don’t know what exactly do they do. Here are some, including explanation.

  • Video > Color Replacement - replace a specific color in the video with another color, including clear color (alpha). The resulting format is ProRes.
  • Video > Video to Images - this preset allows you to export a video into image sequences. You can specify the rate at which the images are exported.
  • Audio > iPhone Ringtone - you can create ringtones for your iPhone.
  • Image > Text - converts an image into text (OCR).
  • PDF > Apply PDF Filter - macOS comes with various filters that can be applied on a PDF and include e.g. size reduction filter which compresses images within the file.
  • PDF > PDF - a basic PDF preset that allows merging multiple images into a single PDF or merging multiple PDFs into a single one.
  • Text > Text Encoding - allows you to convert text files between different encodings.
  • Text > Text to Speech - converts your text file into an audio file.

Creating a "Passthru" Preset

Passthru (remux) means that the video and audio tracks get copied and only the container format is changed. As Permute already copies compatible tracks by default, it should rarely be necessary to require such a preset, but it can be created. To create it, follow these steps:

  • In Settings > Presets click on + button in the toolbar to add a new preset.
  • Under Type select Advanced Custom.
  • Once created, select copy under both Video and Audio encoder options.

⚠️ Warning: using this incorrectly will result in conversion failures.