Mask Property

Microsoft Office Visual Basic

expression.Mask

expression    Required. An expression that returns a CommandBarButton object.

Remarks

When you create an image that you plan on using as a mask image, all of the areas that you want to be transparent should be white, and all of the areas that you want to show should be black.

Always set the mask after you have set the picture for a CommandBarButton object.

Example

The following example sets the image and mask of the first CommandBarButton that the code returns. To make this work, create a mask image and a button image and sustitute the paths in the sample with the paths to your images.

Sub ChangeButtonImage()
    Dim picPicture As IPictureDisp
    Dim picMask As IPictureDisp

    Set picPicture = stdole.StdFunctions.LoadPicture( _
        "c:\images\picture.bmp")
    Set picMask = stdole.StdFunctions.LoadPicture( _
        "c:\images\mask.bmp")

    'Reference the first button on the first command bar
    'using a With...End With block.
    With Application.CommandBars.FindControl(msoControlButton)
        'Change the button image.
        .Picture = picPicture

        'Use the second image to define the area of the
        'button that should be transparent.
        .Mask = picMask
    End With
End Sub
		

The following example gets the image and mask of the first CommandBarButton that the code returns and outputs each of them to a file. To make this work, specify a path for the output files.

Sub GetButtonImageAndMask()
    Dim picPicture As IPictureDisp
    Dim picMask As IPictureDisp

    With Application.CommandBars.FindControl(msoControlButton)
        'Get the button image and mask of this CommandBarButton object
        Set picPicture = .Picture
        Set picMask = .Mask
    End With

    'Save the button image and mask in a folder.
    stdole.SavePicture picPicture, "c:\image.bmp"
    stdole.SavePicture picMask, "c:\mask.bmp"
End Sub