Reformatting for different print formats

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• Martyn Sandford   Wednesday 22 Jan 2020 18:01:11

  I need to arrange printouts of a couple of my routes in 'Z-fold' format (i.e., A4 folded twice to form a tall thin pamphlet suitable for dispaying alongside tourist information leaflets.)

  I'm not necessarily asking for a ready made output from Plotaroute but I've been unsuccessful in getting any output in a form I can put into and editor such as Microsoft Word.  The closest I've got is loading a PDF into Word but all of the turn and other symbols become unreadable.

  Any helful ideas?

• plotaroute admin   Thursday 23 Jan 2020 09:30:39

  Hi Martyn - for custom layouts it is best to download the route as an image.

• Martyn Sandford   Wednesday 29 Jan 2020 16:48:56

  Hi John,

  Thanks for the advice but, unless I've missed a trick with images, I don't think I explained myself well enough. I'll have another go:

  For those that don't have a smart phone, the pdf printout is excellent for use out on the route. For this context, I print the route with directions and in-line photos.

  However, on a couple of ocassions, I've found myself wanting to reformat the pdf output.  Initially it was to shrink the pages to A3 and print everything in the form of a booklet.  More recently, my local council has indicated a desire to have some of the local routes in a printed format that could be displayed alongside tourist information, e.g., at the library and town museum.  (Plotaroute would, of course, be enthusiastically acknowledged!)  For this purpose they need Z-fold.

  I'm more than happy to put in the work to tweek the output to the required specifications but, as yet, I've not found an output that allows me to tweek.  In particualr, I would like to narrow the column width in the directions to match the tall think shape of Z-fold pages with the text reflowing to match the new width.  The white space alongside the photos could be eliminated at the same time.

  I suspect that there is no easy solution but any tips you might be able to offer will be appreciated.

  Martyn

   

• mikhail kamentsev   Wednesday 29 Jan 2020 22:39:59

  We have the same problems. The best way out, I think, would be to use Unicode characters for arrows, like → (2192) instead of graphic characters.

  Then the table with directions could be perfectly copied, for example, to Excel for further editing

• plotaroute admin   Thursday 30 Jan 2020 10:07:45

  I don't think there's an easy automated solution to this unfortunately. Route printing is only really set up for A4 or letter sized paper at present, so it would probably be quite complicated to change it to support a z-folded layout, where the page is split into 3 columns.

  I think you best bet is to do the following:

  • Create a publishing style document in your computer (e.g. Publisher or Word)
    
    
  • Download the map as an image and insert that into your document - you can resize or reposition this accordingly.
    
    
  • Select the "Print Using Browser" option to display a print preview of the directions and then copy and paste these into the document.  You can then resize the direction table accordingly.  Photos will need to be resized individually and you would need to manually enter the Turns if you want to retain the Turns column in the table, as the turn arrows won't transfer.
• Bill Semmens Thursday 26 Aug 2021 22:27:23

  I want to plot my route so it shows the road names. It looks like the hybrid map will do this. But when I try to print that map, the preview comes up blank. What do you suggest?

   

• plotaroute admin   Friday 27 Aug 2021 09:32:22

  Hi Bill - the amount of detail shown on the map depends on how far zoomed in it is. When you print a route it will set the zoom level to the best fit for the route, so if you want more detail, such as road names, you would need to print the route in sections. As a Premium member you have the option of printing the map over multiple pages - this automaticaally splits the route into equal length sections when it is printed, with a different section on each page.