Programming Windows®, Fifth Edition

The Old Metafile Format

Metafiles either can exist temporarily in memory or can be saved as disk files. To an application, these two processes are quite similar; in particular, all the file I/O that would otherwise be involved in saving and loading data to and from disk-based metafiles is handled by Windows.

Simple Use of Memory Metafiles

You create a metafile in the old format by first creating a metafile device context with a call to CreateMetaFile. You can then use most of the GDI drawing functions to draw on this metafile device context. These GDI calls don’t really draw on any real device, however. Instead, they are stored within the metafile. When you close the metafile device context, you get back a handle to the metafile. You can then “play” ...