Windows – How to make Windows Paint save by default as JPEG format

jpegmicrosoft-paintwindowswindows xp

Every time I want to save an image I've pasted into the Paint application,
it chooses a BMP/DIB format (which is the worst for saving things from the clipboard).

How can I hack Paint into defaulting to the JPEG format when saving images?

I am using Windows XP SP3 and Paint 5.1 at the moment. I hope though that any hacks might be generic and I'd be able to use them across all my Windows machines.

Best Answer

I use a dirty little hack for this.

  • Make a small blank white JPEG image and save it to a place like C:\blank.JPG and make it read only
  • right-click the paint shortcut in the start menu, and select "Properties"
  • Append "C:\blank.JPG" to the end of the Target field (keep the quotes)

now every time you open paint it will start with that JPEG image and the "Save As..." option will be set to JPEG. Since the image is read only, if you try and save over it, the "Save As" dialog will pop up instead.

If that doesn't suit your needs you can throw paint into ResHacker and search for the dialog or string table, and modify it accordingly.

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