How to create beautiful PDFs from Tinderbox maps

For a couple of years I tried to make high quality PDF files from Tinderbox maps. Making several experiments I got the result. I don’t know why it works but it does.
Procedure:

  1. Look at your map and decide is it horizonthal or vertical.
  2. Arrange it accordingly.
  3. Go to printer setup menu. Choose A3 Porttrait od Landscape. Scale to 90 or 80%.
  4. in the map view zoom the map until all texts doesnot wrap
  5. Go to print and choose Save as PDF.
    That’s it. You got a beautiful PDF with text ready for quality print. If you’ll get wide borders, you can always crop the image in Adobe Acrobat. Use it, insert it in your books or presentations.
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Make sure to check out Edit->Copy View as Image and paste the loaded clipboard in Preview.app … and see whether you like what you get … It’s actually the way to go to get/achieve what you seem to be looking for, nee?

No, Copy View as image causes loss of quality and to save it as a file you have first to paste it in some graphic software. While PDF file can be scaled without any loss of qaulity. You can print large maps with perfect resolution. Such maps are important for team discussions when the maps are really large.

I find printing maps gets less useful for larger maps. As mentioned before, the SnagIT app, though not inexpensive, has a “panoramic scrolling” option for screen capture, which does a great job for copying and exporting maps as image files or .pdf.

I was wrong. Copy view image really gives a vector image. If then you create new document from clipboard in Adobe Acrobat. It gives perfect result.

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