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Introduction: DIBs, DDBs, and the Clipboard

A DIB (device independent bitmap) is a standard Windows representation of a bitmap. It is similar to the LEADTOOLS representation of a bitmap in that it includes palette information. A DDB (device dependent bitmap) is a hardware-specific representation that does not include palette information. Sometimes, you may need to manipulate a bitmap using Windows functions that work with DIBs or DDBs. For example, you may need to interact with an existing application that uses those functions. For that purpose, LEADTOOLS functions let you convert or copy to and from DIBs or DDBs. Of course, when converting to and from a DDB, you must preserve the palette information separately.

A DIB consists of one of the following:

• a BITMAPFILEHEADER,

• a BITMAPV4HEADER (introduced in Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0),

• or a BITMAPV5HEADER (introduced in Windows 2000 and Windows 98),

followed by a color table and then the bitmap data. The resulting DIB type is determined by the value of the uType flag.

For a list of DIB and DDB functions, refer to:

Using DIBs and DDBs.

The clipboard is a standard Windows object for copying data from one application to another. LEADTOOLS lets you copy images to the clipboard and paste images from the clipboard. When copying to the clipboard, most LEADTOOLS functions clear the existing data from the clipboard, and copy image data to it in the form of a DIB, a DDB, and a palette (if one is needed). If that is not what you want, you can use a LEADTOOLS DLL function to specify exactly which actions to take.

For a list of clipboard functions, refer to:

Using the Clipboard.

For More Information, Refer to:

Demo Programs

Raster Image Functions: Creation, Deletion, and Copying Using DIBs and DDBs

Raster Image Functions: Creation, Deletion, and Copying Using the Clipboard