PRB: 'Invalid Picture' Error When Setting Metafile (WMF)

ID: Q147667

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Visual Basic Standard, Professional, and Enterprise Editions, 16-bit and 32-bit, for Windows, version 4.0

SYMPTOMS

Setting the Picture property of picture box control to a metafile (.wmf) format file can cause Visual Basic to raise the following error:

Invalid Picture.

Sample code as well as compiled executables for utilities to convert between these metafile formats exist in the articles listed in the REFERENCES section.

CAUSE

This error may occur if you attempt to set the picture property to an image type that the control does not understand. If the file or other source of the image is corrupt then the control may not be able to interpret the image well enough to determine what kind of image it is, let alone display and manipulate it.

With .wmf (metafile) image formats, an additional wrinkle is relevant. Visual Basic 4.0, and other Microsoft products such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel, do not use the 'standard' metafile format. Instead, these applications use an 'Aldus Placeable Format' metafile. The formats differ in that placeable metafiles include a 22-byte 'metafileheader' data structure at the beginning of the file. The placeable metafile format is incompatible with such Windows API functions as CreateMetaFile, GetMetaFile, CopyMetaFile, and PlayMetaFile.

STATUS

This behavior is by design.

REFERENCES

The following article provides a 16-bit utility that can convert between normal Windows metafiles and the corresponding Aldus Placeable Format metafiles:

Q129658 SAMPLE: Reading and Writing Aldus Placeable Metafiles

The following article contains a sample that provides a 32-bit utility to work with the 32-bit enhanced metafile format. The utility can also convert between normal (16-bit) metafiles and Aldus Placeable Format metafiles:

Q145999 SAMPLE: How to Create & Play Enhanced Metafiles in Win32

Additional query words: 4.00 vb4win vb4all

Keywords : EnvtDes
Version : WINDOWS:4.0
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbprb