Work in progress
1. Overview
2. Creating a map - step by step
The map creation form leads you through a series of steps that each cover a specific step in the overal map creation workflow. Which step you are in is visualized in an icon bullet bar.
You can only navigate between steps with the [Next] and [Back] buttons though, as some steps depend on specific input from previous steps. So it is not possible to navigate between arbitrary steps by clicking on the step icons.
The [Next] button will appear whenever a valid choice was made in the current step, the [Back] button is visible on all but the first step. On the final step a [Generate Map] button is shown instead of the [Next] button.
2.1. Select a map area or upload a file
At the very beginning the map area to be rendered needs to be determined. For this there are currently three alternatives, available as different form tabs:
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Directly select a rectangular area on an online map.
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Use a city or place name to look up its boundaries in the OSM database.
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Upload a GPX track, Umap export, or GeoJSON file. The map area will be determined by the contained data.
When uploading files you can still select a different, e.g. smaller or larger, map area afterwards.
2.1.1. Directly Select Area
Here you can select a rectangular map area. The map shown is a typical “slippy” online map, on the left you have buttons for zooming in and out, a button to detect your current location, and a search button to search for a place by name.
By default the full visible map area is selected here, but you may also use the [Select area] button to enable a more sophisticated area selection tool.
When pressing the [Select area] button the user interface changes a bit, you’ll now see a highlighted rectangular area that marks the actual selected area. You can drag the four corners of the rectangle around to change its shape and size, and you can move the complete area by dragging it along by the dotted marker in its upper left corner.
With [Select area within current zoom] you can make the full visible area the new selection, and the [Remove selection] brings you back to the original mode.
The four number fields below the map show the current min. and max. latitude and longitude of your selected area.
When you are satisfied with your selection you can use the [>] button on the right to move on to the next form step.
2.1.2. City Search
On the “City search” tab you can enter a city or place name in the input field, if the administrative borders of that city or place are known to OpenStreetMap these can be used to determine the map area to use automatically.
A dropdown below the field will show possible matches for your input as you type. Only the matches that are printed in black are selectable. The matches printed in grey are either place nodes for which no border information is available in OSM yet, or the place area is too large to be printed with this web service.
2.1.3. Upload data files
Here you can upload data files containing geographic featuers in the form of GPX tracks, Umap exports, or general GeoJSON files, which will then be rendered on top of the base map.
The upload form performs some basic checks, so it will complain when one of the uploaded files is not in a supported format, or does not contain any actual data.
Note that the files will be stored on the web server, and that the map generated from them (but not the actual uploaded files themselves) will be visible to everyone. So do not upload any sensitive data you don’t want to to be seen in public, or that you don’t have the permission to share in public.
Once files have been selected and verified, the form switches back to the area selection tabl, where it will show a preview of the imported file contents, and the optimal map area to display all contained data.
If you want to render a different area, e.g. just a smaller part of the data, or a larger area showing more context beyond the data itself, you can change the selection area accordingly.
Uploading a GPX track
When uploading a GPX track the contained track, and any named way points will be rendered on top of the base map.
The actual final result of e.g. a rendered GPX track may look like the example below:
Uploading a Umap File
You can upload a file exported from Umap, a service that lets you create online maps with your own markers and drawings on top. We provide you with a way to also use this fine tool to produce customized printed maps with your own data on top, and not only online maps.
To create an export file from a Umap you created you need to click on the “Embed and Share” Icon on the left side of the Umap interface, and then use “Download Data → Full map data” in the sidebar on the right hand size.
Only data directly added using the Umap drawing tools will be rendered for now. Umap also allows to import external data on the fly, like data form CSV files, or dynamic queries against an Overpass API Server, this kind of data is not supported by this service yet though, and so will not be part of the generated print map.
Like with GPX uploads, once a valid Umap file has been selected for upload the form will switch back to the area selection tab and will show a simplified preview of the uploaded data.
You can modify the selected area if you only want to show part of the Umap information, or actually want to show it in a larger map context.
An actually rendered Umap map may look like the example on the right hand side above, while the left hand side shows how the original online Umap looks like. The results are not completely the same , especially when it comes to line stroke width, but this is mostly due to difference in size an resolution of the target devices, paper vs. screen.
2.2. Select a paper layout
In this step you can choose between different paper layouts.
There are four different single page layouts, and one for multi page booklets.
The basic single page layout uses the full page for the map.
The next two single page layouts add a street index to the map, either on the side — left side for left-to-write languages, or right side for right-to-left languages like Arabic or Hebrew — or at the bottom.
The fourth single page layout renders a full page map, like the basic layout, and puts the street index on a second page in the generated PDF. The other generated formats will not contain an index as they do not support multi page output.
The multi page layout creates a multi page booklet with a title page, an overview page, a collection of detail map pages, and a street index.
The preview on the right hand side changes with your selection, it does not show the actual selected map area though. It is just using pre-rendered examples to give you a rough idea what each layout looks like.
For all but the "Full-page layout without index" layout the actual index generator can be selected. The default selection "Streets and selected amenities" generates a classic street index, but there are also a few "special interest" alternatives available.
Right now these are:
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Healt related facitilies - a work-in-progress index of health facilities and districts
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OSM notes index - an experimental indexshowing current OSM notes for the selected area
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Tree genus / species index - showing what kinds of different trees are growing in an area, most useful for small areays like allotment colonies
2.3. Select a map style
Here you can select the style of the base map.
Style selections are grouped by specific themes, e.g. for country specific styles. Only one base style can be selected.
The preview on the right hand side again changes with your selection, and only shows a fixed pre-defined map area, not the area you actually chose, to give you a quick rough idea what the chosen style looks lie.
2.4. Optionally: Select map overlays
Map overlays are rendered on top of the basemap. They can either add decoration elements like a compas rose or scale bar, or additional special interest map features like hiking routes, fire hydrants or height contour lines.