9 replies to this topic

[Yong]

i'm been doing mainly single piece maps using mostly Adobe illustrator.
there is a project where the clients want a street directory at 1:10,000 scale. the number of maps is around 200.
The data is mainly imported from Arcgis and edited in AI. Basically, i like to hear how others manage this (pagenation, top-bottom-left-right adjacent map numbers, etc). I'm thinking about using Adobe Indesign to manage the pagenation and master template but i got no experience in that. any advice would be helpful.

[Dennis McClendon]

InDesign is a pretty easy way to do this. Make a skeleton version of your master map that has easy-to-see lines or rectangles on it showing the divisions between pages, and only a few other features (for speed). You can even put big page numbers in the middle of the squares so you can double-check that you're seeing the right area. Make another version of your master map that's complete and ready for printing, without the page demarcations and numbers. Place the first version, so you can easily slide it around in InDesign's graphic frames. Do your page numbers and adjacent maps numbers there as well. With a little experimentation, you can figure out how to automate the numbering of this using Excel and a text editor, by generating and placing (one line at a time) stories that have "See Map X" as individual lines in a particular order.

When the atlas layout is finished using the skeleton map master, relink to the real map master, using the "Relink all instances" option.

[Yong]

thanks for the pointers. you make it sound so simple but this requires some serious reading and learning.

[Dennis McClendon]

Not really. Just ask, and I'll try to explain how to do things step-by-step. InDesign will do a lot of the hard work.

[rudy]

Do your page numbers and adjacent maps numbers there as well. With a little experimentation, you can figure out how to automate the numbering of this using Excel and a text editor, by generating and placing (one line at a time) stories that have "See Map X" as individual lines in a particular order.

We use InDesign for our map books but I'm curious about this automating the page numbers. Can you explain further?

[Yong]

The question on my mind now is say that i have setup the template of the publication. This include putting the map series number along the borders.
Do i cut the AI files for each page individually or can i design a large map in AI and just setup it to show certain portions of the map in each map page. Can this be done? or if anyone have a more elegant way of doing this.

Not really. Just ask, and I'll try to explain how to do things step-by-step. InDesign will do a lot of the hard work.

[Dennis McClendon]

Look again at my first post. Set up your large map of the whole city and make a temporary version (a copy) with overlapping page frames and large page numbers on it. Place that version in InDesign and drag the image around in the window so only one page frame shows at a time. The large page numbers let you easily see that you have the proper section of the map displayed on that particular page. Once finished with the whole book, relink to the master map version without any page frames or numbers.

Rudy, I had in mind using Excel to generate a file with

see map 42
see map 43
see map 44

etc., on separate lines. InDesign can be set to do a column break before each new line. This would let you easily load up the text gun and do all the top-of-frame references in one pass. Then reload and do the left-of-frame references in another pass. Excel lets you make the numbers relative to other numbers, so you can get quite sophisticated. When I set up the tiles for the online Chicago bikemap, I used Excel to help me write the HTML so I wouldn't have to hand-calculate the links to show the next tile north, south, east, and west. I also had it write the keymap usemap for me so each square mile would have a separate link.

[Charles Syrett]

online Chicago bikemap,

This is state of the art mapmaking! Google mashups, move over.

Charles Syrett
Map Graphics
http://www.mapgraphics.com

[Dennis McClendon]

Are you being sarcastic? Everyone in the tech world seems to think my approach of serving up dumb GIFs in HTML is hopelessly outdated. For one thing, you can't drag from tile to tile, or zoom in and out.

[Charles Syrett]

Ah -- you forget that I'm also an old timer. To me, "outdated" as a term relative to mapping refers to content, not style or interactivity. "State of the art" refers to knowing what kind of interactivity and graphic style to use, in which situation. I suppose there are some Google mash-ups that work well, and serve their purpose, but there are far too many of them. Often a good old pdf, or gifs-with-html, do the job better.

Charles Syrett
Map Graphics
http://www.mapgraphics.com

Are you being sarcastic? Everyone in the tech world seems to think my approach of serving up dumb GIFs in HTML is hopelessly outdated. For one thing, you can't drag from tile to tile, or zoom in and out.