I installed Corel Draw onto my computer and it appears to have converted all of my JPEG (*.jpg) files into DIB files. As a result, none of my scanned documents and pictures that were saved in this manner can be opened anymore. When I attempt to open them, the error message appears that the computer ‘Cannot open xxx.jpg (or one of its components)’ and ‘xxx.jpg is not a Legitimate DIB file’. What is a DIB file and how can I transform such file back into a JPEG one file? Furthermore, the JPEG file icons now show a camera instead of a paint pot. Do you have any suggestions as to why this occurred and most importantly how I can fix it? I am running Windows 98 with Office 2000 Premium, a CanoScan FB 320P on a Pentium 166.

A DIB file is a Device Independent Bitmap Graphic. This is used by Windows and is more commonly known under the extension of BMP. From your description of the problem, it looks as if Corel Draw has not converted your JPEG files to DIB files. Instead, Corel Draw changed the file association for JPEG files and now attempts to open in another application (eg. Corel Draw). This can be seen as the error message identifies the file name as xxx.JPG rather than xxx.DIB. The new application probably doesn’t support JPEG files and possibly only supports DIB files thus it is giving you the error message. Before you installed Corel Draw, JPEG files probably opened in Paint as you had a paint pot icon for your JPEG files. All that we need to do is to change the file association for JPEG files so that it is associated with Paint and has the paint icon. To do this, hold down SHIFT and right-click on an image file with which you are experiencing the problem. In the context menu that appears, click ‘Open With…’. In the ‘Open with’ window which appears, scroll down the list of applications until you find ‘Paint’, ‘Microsoft Paint’, or alike. Once you have found the application, click it once to highlight it, then tick ‘Always use this program to open these files’ and complete the sequence by pressing the ‘Ok’ button. Now every time you double-click on a JPEG file, it will open in the application you just specified, being, Paint. However, you may still find that the icon is different. If this is the case, go to the ‘Start’ menu > ‘Programs’ > ‘Windows Explorer’. When Windows Explorer loads, click the ‘View’ or ‘Tools’ menu > ‘Folder Options’ and click the ‘File Types’ tab. In the ‘Registered File Types’ box, scroll down until you find ‘JPEG Image’, click ‘JPEG Image’, and click the ‘Edit’ button. In the window which appears, click the ‘Change Icon’ button and then click ‘Browse’. Locate the Microsoft Paint executable file which should be in the C:WINDOWS directory. Once you have found that file, click the file and then click the ‘Open’ button. Click ‘Ok’ in the ‘Change Icon’ window, ‘Edit File Type’ window, and ‘Options’ window. The icon should now be changed. If any other files are affected by this problem, all you need to do is to repeat the full file association and icon changing procedure again.