Editing BMP file format (section)

== Usage of BMP format ==
The simplicity of the BMP file format, and its widespread familiarity in Windows and elsewhere, as well as the fact that this format is relatively well documented and has an [[open format]], makes BMP a very common format that image processing programs from many operating systems can read and write. [[ICO (file format)|ICO]] and CUR files contain bitmaps starting with a BITMAPINFOHEADER.

Many older [[graphical user interface]]s used bitmaps in their built-in graphics subsystems;<ref>{{cite book | title = Cross-Platform GUI Programming with Wxwidgets |author1=Julian Smart |author2=Stefan Csomor |author3=Kevin Hock  |name-list-style=amp| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=CyMsvtgnq0QC&q=bitmap+pixmap+gui&pg=PA265| publisher = Prentice Hall | year = 2006 | isbn = 0-13-147381-6 }}</ref> for example, the Microsoft Windows and OS/2 platforms' [[Graphics Device Interface|GDI]] subsystem, where the specific format used is the ''Windows and OS/2 bitmap file format'', usually named with the [[file extension]] of <code>.BMP</code>.<ref name="LoC">{{cite web|url=http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000189.shtml|title=Bitmap Image File (BMP), Version 5|publisher=[[Library of Congress]]|work=Digital Preservation|date=2014-01-08|access-date=2014-03-11}}</ref>

While most BMP files have a relatively large file size due to lack of any compression (or generally low-ratio [[run-length encoding]] on palletized images), many BMP files can be considerably compressed with [[lossless data compression]] algorithms such as [[ZIP (file format)|ZIP]] because they contain redundant data. Some formats, such as [[RAR (file format)|RAR]], even include routines specifically targeted at efficient compression of such data.