Brenda:

> I am trying to work through this. Now a kind of off the wall question, my
> bitmaps are not transparent. I have opened them in paint and have made sure
> that Options, Draw Opque is not checked, and have filled the background with
> a color. some of the bitmaps are then transparent and some are not. Any ideas
> how to get the bitmaps background transparent?

I don't know but I would try the following.

1) Open your bitmap in Paint.
2) Select all (CTRL+L)
3. Cut (CTRL+X)
5) Select the transparent (last) button on the Toolbox.  You
   may want to look at the Transparent topic in Help if you
   are not sure which button is the Transparent button.
4) Paste (CTRL+V)
5) Save the image
6) Close Paint

It's worth a shot.

Daniel