Date: Mon, 25 May 1998 01:36:38 -0700
From: "Kevin D. Quitt" <Kevin@Quitt.net>
To: submit@wotsit.demon.co.uk
Subject: BMP format

There is a deficiency in the BMP file format specification from
Microsoft.
While they do point out in RLE encoding mode that lines must start on an
even byte number, they have omitted the following:

EVERY compression group must start on an even byte boundary.

In RGB encoding (no compression), when using 8 bits per pixel, lines
must start on a long-word boundary (i.e., low two bits zero).

And, of course, they use 'int' in the spec when it should properly be
'short', and they use 'long' and 'DWORD' interchangeably.  Should just
be 'long'.