HOWTO: Create Transparent Images From Bitmaps

• Microsoft Visual Basic Learning, Professional, and Enterprise Editions for Windows, versions 5.0, 6.0

SUMMARY

In previous versions of Visual Basic, creating transparent bitmaps required extensive use of the Windows API. The problem was that Visual Basic controls could not use graphic file types (such as GIF) that support transparency. Visual Basic for Windows versions 5.0 and 6.0 controls can use files in a much wider range of formats than previous versions.

MORE INFORMATION

While it is still possible to handle transparent bitmaps programmatically, this article presents a solution that requires no code. This approach requires the use of a graphics editor such as the Microsoft Photo Editor that ships with Office 97, but any graphic editor that can set a transparent color will suffice.

Steps To Create a Transparent Image From a Bitmap

1. Open the bitmap in Microsoft Photo Editor.



2. Click the "Select Transparent Color" button on the toolbar.



3. Click on the bitmap background to select the color (Photo Editor selects by color - not area). It should "hatch" the selected color. Click OK on the "Change Color to Transparent" dialog that appears.



4. Use File...SaveAs to save the bitmap as a .GIF image.



5. Specify the .GIF file as the Image property in any control that supports this file type.

REFERENCES

For additional information on creating bitmaps via code, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q187568 HOWTO: Create Your Own Bitmap Object Class

Q193543 INFO: Unisys GIF and LZW Technology License Information

Additional query words: kbDSupport kbDSD kbVBp kbVBp500 kbVBp600 kbBitmap

Keywords : kbGrpVB
Version : WINDOWS:5.0,6.0
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbhowto