Hi Rick,

>I think that issue has been dropped or there'd be a real problem
>on the Internet where just about everything is GIF formatted.

Unfortunately it hasn't, AFAIK. It used to be free for non-profit and private use, but the company (can't remember it's name, but I'll look for it if there's any need) changed their policy about two years ago. There's even a page on www.microsoft.com that explains that Microsoft developer tools are only licensed for the developer, not for every client they have.

>GIF files are always compressed BTW, but unlike JPEG there are
>no options for the compression used.

There are tools that create noncompressed GIFs, but haven't yet looked into their structure.

Christof