Bi 1 Dy 2 Fe 5 O 1 2 garnet (Bi:DyIG) film and powder were prepared by a sol-gel process, the so-called Pechini process, in which ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA) and ethylene glycol (EG) were used as complexing and polymerization agents. The film could be entirely crystallized into single-phase garnet through 700 o C annealing following 20 min 450 o C preannealing. By comparison the powder should be fired at an elevated temperature of 800 o C for the formation of single-phase garnet, despite the long pre-annealing time at 450 o C as long as 4 h. The higher formation temperature of single-phase garnet for the powder is preliminarily believed to be due to the fact that, the firing process for the powder starting from the dried gel precursor is somewhat like the traditional solid state reaction process.