Printing Flip Mats

[Z. Zedduces]

Is there any good way or suggestion for how to do this?

[TomParker]

On the Mac I use an app called SplitPrint (in the App Store) that will automatically divide a large document into multiple 8.5" x 11" pages. That involves a lot of cutting and taping.

If you print in B&W, printing is pretty reasonable at places like Staples or FedEx Office. Color printing is very pricey in large formats, though.

And I keep imagining that someday I will buy something like this but my girlfriend assures me that if I bring that home it will be the last thing I ever do.

[JPSTOD]

Go digital :)
Electronics are coming down.

Would love a large Format printer...
Would be Nice if someone brought down costs more..

I have seen a Home Printer that will do 11x17 Prints...Have Considered starting to design Maps so I could print them at home.

[JPSTOD]

TomParker wrote:

but my girlfriend assures me that if I bring that home it will be the last thing I ever do.

Time for a New Girlfriend :)

[TxSam88]

I work at a firm that has a 42" wide plotter. I can print the flip maps directly at full scale.

I can also take the maps from the modules and print them at the proper scale for miniatures.

there's probably a local print shop in your area that can do this too (Kinko's comes to mind)

[Dreiseratops]

I have been thinking and working on this subject a lot.
I was even in contact with a couple newspaper printers thinking that if I could bulk deal a set of starter maps they could be packed in sets of 10 for $10 then people would use them and write all over them and not worry too much because theyre really cheap.

HOWEVER~ Micro PICO projectors are looking more reasonable. you can get a trash one for $50 or less.
Keep battle mat images on your phone and project one down to your dry erase surface as you need them. highlighting/drawing out only the important bits like doors and roads but the theater of the mind is still good because they get to see it while you draw and then you take it away so theyre left with the memory and an outline on the grid.

Eh?

[Eric Clingenpeel]

I usually use Adobe Reader when I print mine. You can print in poster mode and split it into 9 pages 3x3. I tend to use cardstock, then I tape them together in a way that allows me to fold them in thirds. Or I'll print them on regular paper, tape them, and roll them, but I prefer the cardstock method.

My VL will occasionally print his at staples I think as they can print poster sized, but that gets as expensive as buying the actual flip-mat.

[Don Passolt]

"Jello" Eric I have a question. how do I get convention for a oct. 7 new convention? time is 10am, 2:30pm, and 7pm for game starts. I am thinking 6 - 8 tables. please let me know here and at [e-mail] so I get asap. also the comic con
in Grand Rapids wanted to talk with you about possible gaming. The lady in charge is at [e-mail]

[The Sword]

I print onto A3 then laminate the pieces, at the scale of 1inch to a square you get all but one row either side I believe which is enough to cover almost the entire piece. I find the snapshot tool in adobe is perfectly adequate for the flip map scales.

I then copy the image screen shot into word in page set to A3 with a margins of 0.25"
If you keep the scale right then that should allow a tile 11 squares wide by 16 long. Print four of these and bobs your uncle.

Another advantage of Word I find is that I can copy other images using the set transparency function to superimpose other structures onto the battle map. For instance I was able to superimpose the ground floor of Tidewater Rock tower onto my copy of the hill country map to have a tower at the top of the winding path. It looks awesome.

Have fun.

[TriOmegaZero]

My wife picked up a color laser printer and we use Adobe Acrobat to save the map images for editing in Photoshop. Scaling them up to 1 inch squares has become pretty easy, then we print them on standard letter size paper. Lamination comes from a cheap laminator from Amazon, then we trim and tape the pieces together. Folds up nice and neat to fit in a standard size folder.