Suggestions for printing PDF maps

[bmcdaniel]

I am thinking about getting some of the dungeon/tactical maps printed out on poster-size paper. Has anyone got any experience with doing this? Do you have a reccomendation (either online or brick&mortar)? How did you arrange it so that the print is the right scale (1 inch squares)?

Thanks,

Brian

[Olistostrome]

I haven't printed one before, but if the pdf is properly to scale, it should print ok. If you have a kinko's near you, many of their stores have poster printers. Printing in black and white is cheapest. I've even seen lamination that can use dry erase.

[AllFather]

Might I suggest checking out or at least talking to these guys. They are a print shop that has taken on gaming printing as a specialty.

http://www.gamer-printshop.com/index.html

[Lord Alarik The Fool]

I have resized all of the maps onto 8x10.5 grids and printed them out on my LaserJet, then taped them together. (I exported the images from the online supplements into Macromedia Fireworks and saved them as individual images and printed them that way.) I considered posting the maps bit here but I did not want to distribute the copyrighted material...

Alternatively you can print them direct from Adobe just choose "tile all pages" and play around with the zoom level until it comes out right. (Print one sheet at 100% and measure what percent to crank it up to, so that each square equals an inch)

[The Black Bard]

It works on most maps, but really big-uns like the Crimson Fleet base just pixelize too much. Maybe if you blew it up, then overlayed an appropriately sized grid with photoshop. Hard to say there.

[Troy Taylor]

AllFather wrote:

Might I suggest checking out or at least talking to these guys. They are a print shop that has taken on gaming printing as a specialty.

http://www.gamer-printshop.com/index.html

Oh wow, those guys are just down the road. (I live maybe 30 minutes away). I've never heard of them. Thanks!

[derek_cleric]

There are two tricks you can do if you're working with an image rather than a pdf.

Copy the image into the first cell of OOo Calc or M$ Excel and hit print. The map will be printed in sections with margins that can then be cut and taped together.

Alternately, you can open the image in The Gimp (There's a product called Photosomething that can do this too) and click on Image --> Canvas Size. There you can select the new size of the image and what part of the image to be set to that size. Breaking the "chain" icon in the Canvas Size window will allow you to set the height and width to anything you like. Keep saving the images as new files as you select new areas and be sure to overlap the images slightly so it will be easier to tape together.

--Ray.

[gamer-printer]

Troy Taylor wrote:

AllFather wrote:

Might I suggest checking out or at least talking to these guys. They are a print shop that has taken on gaming printing as a specialty.

http://www.gamer-printshop.com/index.html

Oh wow, those guys are just down the road. (I live maybe 30 minutes away). I've never heard of them. Thanks!

Hey guy! I'm Gamer-Printshop, its my site anyway. Yes I print "lots" of PDF maps for WoBS saga among others. I can print to cardstock in battlemap sizes, or create whole maps printed up to 36 x 48 - I can actually print larger, but I haven't listed every possible size.

Many people have been contacting me via Email and asking can I do this or that - things not mentioned on the site and the answer is usually, yes.

If color is too costly, I can print to large format B/W, a 36 x 48 B/W is $6.00