Why can't I open an image file in Microsoft Paint?
Early versions of mspaint only supported .bmp, or bitmap images. So users who are running Microsoft Windows 95, Windows NT or an earlier version of Microsoft Windows cannot open other image files using mspaint. If you are using Microsoft Paint that does not support the image files you must open, use another image editor. See: What program can I use to view, edit, or create images?
Microsoft later included additional image support in mspaint when they released Microsoft Windows 98. Microsoft Windows 98, Windows Me, and Windows 2000 come with support for opening .bmp, .GIF (graphics interchange format), .jpg, and .jpeg image files.
Microsoft Windows XP added additional support for image files .jpg, .jfif, .tif, .tiff, and .png, and continued to support all image formats available in previous versions of Windows.
If you are running Windows XP or later, follow these steps to open GIF, JPG, or other supported image file formats in Microsoft Paint.
- Click File and select Open, or press Ctrl+O on the keyboard to view the Open window.
- Browse to the location of your image and then double click the file.
- The file opens, and a window similar to the following example should be seen.
