>looking for a way thru code to convert a Bitmap image into a jpeg.. Are there libraries for this kind of stuff?

Lead Technologies has an ActiveX that will do the conversion, and much more. I have used it extensively for a graphics processing engine with VFP 5.0 and 6.0. It's not cheap but is one of the best graphics tools on the market. You can take a look at Lead Technologies. I'm sure there are other activeX components out there that would do the simple conversion if you look around.