Bit-map size is limited by available memory; the maximum width and height are 64KB. The following standard bit-maps formats are normally used:

       Bitcount           Planes
       ========           ======
           1                 1
           4                 1
           8                 1
          24                 1

Display drivers must support at least 4 bits per pel. For other devices, the presentation driver must be able to create and accept any of the standard formats even though they might not use the color information.

The DC handle supplied to this function must never be NULL. Bit maps always belong to some device. The bit map is created on the device specified and can be selected to a different device later as the engine can handle the transfer of bits from one device to another. When the value specified for cPlanes or cBitcount is incompatible with the physical device specified by the DC handle, an error is raised.