Easy to Edit Countries and Text Names

Customer Question: I would like to add text to to some of your country maps. How editable are your maps?

Answer: All of our powerpoint maps are editable, just like any PowerPoint slide is. You can add text where ever you like. Just use the text tool in the drawing bar. Once you have type in place you can format and move where ever you need. We have a lot of samples on the site that you can also download and try out. Also check out our How to Videos on customzing maps, they will show you just how to do this.

Thank you for stopping by.

Printing Large Format Maps in European Sizes

Customer Question: Hi! we need to do a presentation for the company I'm
working for. We need a digital map, because we're going to print it in
Europe. The size of the printing will be fairly large. Do you by any
chance have the possibility do provide a digital map in that size or do
you've any suggestions for me to solve this task?

Answer: Hi, thank you for visiting and for your questions. We have two
options. I am assuming that you are printing and not using PowerPoint.
If the presentation is in PowerPoint then you would just use our
standard PPT maps and adjust the slide to the size you need.

If you are printing you are usually working on some kind of desk top
publishing program like InDesign or Quark to lay out the document. With
these you can set up any size page you want. For the map you would use
our Adobe Illustrator eps version and do your customization in
Illustrator or CorelDraw or some kind of drawing program like that. In
these program you can scale the map to any size. You can also scale the
map to any size once you bring it into InDesign or Quark. EPS files are
vector files so you can make them any size you need and the resolution
doesn't change. They are line drawings and can be customized however
you need.

A second option if you don't have the Adobe kind of products is to do
all of your work in PowerPoint. You can set up custom page sizes and do
your work that way. Many of my customers work like this because they
don't have the graphic design programs. Set up your custom page size
first and then copy and paste your map into the slide. You can check
out our videos for tips on doing this,
http://mapsfordesignhowto.blogspot.com/

I would also check with your printer and see what kind of files they
would like to receive. Printing is different than working on the
computer screen. You are often working with 4 color CYMK files instead
of the 3 color RGB computer screen kind of file. Check with the printer
on this, it will save you a lot of grief later.

I hope this helps, if you have more questions please feel free to
contact me. We also have many sample that you can download to test.

thank you, bruce jones

10 How-to-Lessons on Editing PowerPoint Maps

We have finally filled out our How-to-Customize your PowerPoint maps
email lessons. We now have 10 lessons that flow out on a regular basis
to subscribers. Containing, how-tos, tips and hints on getting the
most our of your editable PowerPoint maps. So make sure you sign up on
our blogs and get on the list.

We received a very nice comment on the lessons from one of our
subscribers, it is always great to receive feedback, thank you.

> Dear Bruce,
>  
> Thank you for the tutorial.  I will need this in the next few months
> as we change territories within the US maps.  So thank you so much. 
> As I start to work on this and if I find it difficult to follow the
> instructions I will call you.
>  I'm still grateful for fixing the immediate issues I had last week.
>  
> Thank you so much.

I answered like this: thank you very much for the comments, I am glad
the lessons are helping. I am also glad to help if you get stuck. Feel
free to call or contact me.

thank you, bruce

Re: Part 1: Dividing a State, County or Country in Half to Show Two Sales Territories

> The object of this lesson from World of Maps is to divide a state,
> county or country map in half and assign it different colors to
> show two territories. This will be a two part email lesson.
>
> PowerPoint isn't really a drawing program but we have found a
> couple of ways of doing this.
>
> Option 1
> 1. Our first option is to use the EDIT POINTS Tool. The first step
> is to duplicate the object. Copy the state or county and paste it
> right on top or on the side of the existing state so that you can
> work on it.
>
> 2. Select the state with your mouse pointer; watch for the eight
> little handles to tell you it is selected.
>
> 3. Go to the DRAW Pop-Up menu in the Drawing Tool Bar and select
> EDIT POINTS, you will now see all of the drawing points or handles
> that make up that map.
>
> 4. While you hold down the Control key on the PC or the Option key
> on the Mac, you click on each point with the mouse pointer and
> start deleting the little points.
>
> 5. The object is to nibbling away the area you want to delete while
> your work your way around the edge. You end up at some point with a
> part of the state. Don't worry it goes faster than you think.
>
> 6. Give it its own color and stroke or line and place it on top of
> the original map. And presto you have a state that looks to the
> viewer like you have cut it in half. But in reality it is made up
> of two pieces, a full state and half state lying on top.
>
> TIP: Use the Zoom pop-up box in the Standard Toolbar to get in
> closer. 200% or 300% works well.
>
> Video
> To review our How-To-Videos please click this link on the link in the
> upper left corner to the How -To Page
>
> About the Maps
> World of Maps is a collection of royalty free, editable MS
> PowerPoint and Adobe Illustrator EPS clip art maps. The maps are
> perfect for sales and marketing presentations, showing sales
> territories and regions, advertising, graphic design, building maps
> for websites, craft and scrapbook projects, developing a map
> worksheet for a class, anywhere a royalty free map is needed.
>
> Collection includes: World Projections, USA, States, County,
> Countries, World Regions, and Global maps. Each state, country or
> block of text is an individual element that can be customized,
> changed, deleted, or colored however you like.
>
> Maps are sold individually at http://www.mapsfordesign.com or on a
> subscription basis at http://www.bjdesign.com. Immediate download
> to your computer, or on CD-Rom.
>

Bosina, Georgia, Kyrgystan, Ukraine new Clip Art Maps

Bosina, Georgia, Kyrgystan, Ukraine, just some of the new editable clip art countries we have been working on. We have about 25 that have been in production for a while. We have done the Adobe Illustrator, PowerPoint and JPG versions. It just takes a while to get them all set. Along with these is a World Mercator Map with county names, this has been on mapsfordesign.com but not the CD, it will in the next release.

One of the interesting maps that has been selling alot lately has been our US National County maps. This map has over 3,000 counties on it. A change that we will be adding to the CD will be this map with the county names in place. This is a big complex map but many customers work with it and it is very popular. In both Adobe Illustrator and PowerPoint. Names will only be on the Illustrator version.

Above is our Azerbaijan map.

Coloring a State or Country in a PowerPoint Slide

Today’s lesson from Maps for Design is about coloring map elements in your PowerPoint Clip Art Maps.

1. Click or Select the state or country that you want to color with the mouse pointer by clicking on it. On the PC use the right button of the mouse, on the Mac just click with the mouse.

You can tell something is selected because you will see 8 little boxes or handles appear around the edges, this tells you the object has been selected and you can now do something to it.

2. Choose a color from the Fill Bucket in the Drawing Tool Bar usually located along the bottom of the PowerPoint slide. Or choose a color from the Colors, Weights and Fills option in the Format Palette. This Palette is located in the VIEW pull down menu.

3. When done deselect by clicking off the image and start on your next one.

TIP. Holding down the Shift Key on your keyboard allows you to select and change several objects at the same time to make the project go faster.

Every object in PowerPoint is made up of a fill color and an outline or stroke color, both can be changed independently of each other.

Video
To review our How To Videos please click this link or copy it into the address section of your web browser.
http://mapsfordesignhowto.blogspot.com/

Maps for Design Product Review

Hi all, we have received a very nice review from Beyondbulletspoints.com on our Editable PowerPoint Maps, thank you Meryl Evans and Beyond Bullet Points.

August 11, 2008
Product Review: Editable Maps for PowerPoint
by Meryl Evans

Maps make great visual aids in a presentation. You might want to use maps in your presentation to show the locations of your offices, where your customers are, or doing an Al Gore and showing the effects of the environment in different cities, states, countries, continents. You could also use maps to make up your own world to use it as a theme in your BBP presentation.
This doesn’t mean starting from scratch or using clip art where you bend over backwards trying to add or delete text because it has no editable regions. Bruce Jones Design offers World of Maps, which are ready to use, easy to edit and customize, and a royalty-free collection of over 1200 clip-art maps for presentations, illustrations, and web sites.

The collection includes World, Regional, Countries, USA and Canada, USA States, Counties and Globe maps in multiple formats, including PowerPoint, EPS, JPG, GIF, and BMP. Most maps are provided in both color and black & white.

Here’s what you can do with these maps:
• Customize the color.
• Add or delete text.
• Pull out states or countries to highlight.
• Show territories, markets, offices by breaking out counties, states or countries and coloring them differently or using a color code.
As shown in the example here, instructions accompany every map when you open the .PPT maps in PowerPoint. You can also check out the videos at the company’s blog that shows how to do different things with maps at World of Maps — How to Videos.

The site’s frequently asked questions explains how to highlight, edit, divide, and enlarge areas. The maps in .ppt format let you have a lot of control. The company also provides maps in GIF, JPG, and EPS (Edit EPS maps in Adobe Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Macromedia Freehand). formats for those who like to do serious graphical work and have the right format for their needs.

The entire collection of over 1200 maps sells for $149.95. If you want it all on a CD-ROM, it’s $199.95. Within the year of purchasing the collection, you may come back as often as you’d like and download any or all of Bruce Jones Design’s maps in any four file formats. The access subscription lasts one year, but the maps are yours to keep.

And the company has graciously made a special offer available for BBP readers. The discount code is good through the end of 2008 for 20% off any purchase and for up to 10 purchases per customer. No one ever does that many purchases but people can come back whenever they want.

The code is: mapsbbp20

The coupon is case sensitive and you enter it on the order form at http://www.mapsfordesign.com.

click to read more.

Global Editable Map for a Publication

Customer Question: We need a Global Editable Maps for our Publication
We are producing an academic journal for our organization. We produce two issues a year in A4 format. We are considering a new cover for the journal and one possibility is to use your Pacific Global projection, in colour. We might need to edit it slightly, though this is difficult to tell until I see it in larger format. What I need to know at this stage is what would it cost to purchase the rights to use this image twice a year as our cover. And would you need an acknowledgement, maybe inside the front cover?
Thank you for your help

MFD Answer: Hi, thank you for looking at our products and for your question. Our editable maps are royalty free and once you purchase them you can use them on your projects with out any additional costs. We have versions of our maps in Adobe Illustrator that can be customized as you need. If you don't have Illustrator many folks use our Powerpoint versions and save them as jpg files and then they can be converted to .tif for print. I would recommend using the eps
illustrator versions for your print work, you will get a sharper crisper image.

Please check out http://www.mapsfordesign.com for the map.
Hope this help, contact me if you have questions

bruce jones

World Map with Names for a Presentation

Customer Question: I need a world map with names for a presentation?
I need a world map, mentioning the country names, of which I can given the countries a certain colour. The countries must be visible (readable) on a projection screen. It must be re-usable. I need to install the programme now on my private pc and later switch
the programme to my business pc. Which of your world maps would that be? Please let me know which map will work

MFD Answer: Hi, thank you for visiting, I would use our World Mercator PowerPoint map, it is easy to color, each country is an individual element that can be customized, it has the country names and you can do all the projection stuff using PowerPoint. Powerpoint files are easy to move around and that program is pretty much available anywhere.

Here is the link to the map I am recommending, the price is $49.95
http://www.mapsfordesign.com/shop/product.php?
productid=16457&cat=252&page=1

Any questions please contact me
bruce

US and Canada Map

Customer Question: Can I buy a US and Canada Map?
Can I purchase a digital map from you that includes the US with Alaska and Hawaii, and the Southern provinces of Canada?

MFD Answer: Thank you for visiting our site and for your question. At
www.MapsforDesign.com we sell individual maps and have a nice combo US
and Canada map for your project. Each element is individual and can be
customized, you could just delete the provinces that you don't need.
Below is a link to the map.

http://www.mapsfordesign.com/shop/product.php?
productid=16170&cat=249&page=1

If you have a question on this please let me know

thank you, bruce

How To Video for Applying CS3 InDesign Transparency

How to Video on using CS3 Indesign’s Opacity Effect Feature, or what used to be called Transparency. This feature allows the background graphic to show through a solid colored box that lays on top of it. This is a great way to keep the continuity of the cover and tie all of the elements together. It is also a great way to highlight the type without it getting lost in a complex graphic like one of our maps.

For the graphic we used one of our Royalty Free World Vintage Maps from our Antique Historical Clip Art Maps Collection. On top of that was a colored box with some type on top of that. By setting the opacity of the box to 70% we can see a shadow of the map below.

The effects feature is located in the Window pull down Menu. We left the main pop-up setting at Normal. Opacity is just to the right. Select the solid box first and then apply the screening by sliding the slide bar to the left or typing in a number. Experiment until you like the effect. Works with type also if you select it with the pointer tool.

To learn more on the collection visit: http://www.antiquehistoricalmaps.com.

Putting PowerPoint Presentations on the Web

And a Software I use a Lot, Screenflow
We have been running this series of excellent posts by Rebecca Leaman on getting your PowerPoint presentation up on the web. Another way that I have been using lately if you are on a new Mac is to use the new Screenflow software.

Screenflow allows you to record the screen plus adding in a video track of yourself. Great to adding commentary and a personal touch to your presentations. Screenflow also allows you to edit out parts you don't want, very helpful. I have been using it to record How to Videos for my software that I do in PowerPoint. Once complete you can then save them as .mov files and load them up onto Youtube and other video hosting platforms. Once there they can be linked to your blog or website.

Screenflow is made by Varasoftware. www.varasoftware.com/products/screenflow/

World Map Showing Historical Trade Routes

Customer Question: I need to customize a world map to show historical trade routes?
I need to draw some line-routes over a map of the world to depict a sailing vessel's trip. I'd like to do it in colors to depict the different locations in different years. Will your Easy To Use
CD-DVD-ROM program work for me?

MFD Answer: Thank you for visiting our site and for your question. The basic answer is yes, but you will need some kind of graphics program to do the customizing in. What we sell are editable clip art maps in either PowerPoint or Adobe Illustrator, we also have jpg ones. All of
your customizing would be done in either of those programs. You could also use CorelDraw instead of Illustrator. You can also work in PhotoShop with the jpg maps but you don't have quite as much flexibility because they are bitmaps instead of objects.

Our maps are fully editable, each state or country is an object that can be changed, the customizing is done in the other programs. The maps can be colored any way that you like, and both PowerPoint and Illustrator have a lot of tools and options to do this..

We have several different views of the world in different projections, including maps with individual editable countries.

thank you for visiting, please contact me if you have additional questions, bruce jones

Are Your EPS Maps Editable in CS3?

Question: Are your eps maps fully editable in CS3? We need a full state
map where we can colorize and name the counties...only certain counties
will be in color...others will be black and white.

Answer: Our eps maps are in an older version of Illustrator so they can
apply to as wide a range of Illustrator versions as they can. They open
just fine in CS3, just hit the UPDATE button to keep the type fully
functioning. We have nice state map by county that would work for your
project. We have lots of free samples on the website that you can
download and test for your project.

thank you for your question

thank you, bruce

Part 4: 4 Ways to Put a PowerPoint Presentation on Your Web Site

by Rebecca Leaman from http://www.wildapricot.com

If your organization makes PowerPoint slideshows for special events, meetings and conferences, you've probably put a lot of time and effort into creating each one. Why not get extra mileage from those PowerPoint presentations by putting them onto your website or blog for others to see?

Here are four different ways to share PowerPoint files on the Web:

Flash it!

In fact, OpenOffice even offers to export your presentation as a Flash (SWF) format. I've just tested this on three presentations created in PowerPoint, and it worked flawlessly for two of them; the third one seemed to get stalled partway through the conversion and had to be done over. The file conversion process is very quick, fortunately.

Other free tools to convert PowerPoint presentations to Flash include iSpring Free, authorPOINT Lite, Speechi Light, to name a few — as well as a host of good commercial programs, many of which will give you a free trial period.

Accuracy of the PPT-to-SWF conversion will vary from program to program, depending in part on the complexity of your presentation. You may need to try a few tools in order to find the one that works best for your purposes and budget. Or get around any tricky conversion issues with free screen recording software like CamStudio — record your PowerPoint presentation as you play it back on your own computer screen (even add an audio commentary to the slideshow, if you want).

Some visual blog editors will have a toolbar button for uploading video, but showing a Flash movie on your website is most often as easy as uploading your SWF file to your web space and using a few lines of object / embed code to embed the file on your page.

To learn more click here

Part 3: 4 Ways to Put a PowerPoint Presentation on Your Web Site

by Rebecca Leaman from http://www.wildapricot.com
Part 3 or 4

If your organization makes PowerPoint slideshows for special events, meetings and conferences, you've probably put a lot of time and effort into creating each one. Why not get extra mileage from those PowerPoint presentations by putting them onto your website or blog for others to see?

Here are four different ways to share PowerPoint files on the Web:

Publish an HTML web page

PowerPoint does let you save your presentation in HTML, as a web page, but this is far from being a satisfactory solution. When you've got the presentation saved in HTML format, just upload the files to your web space and serve it up as a new page on your site. Each slide is saved as a separate image, with its own page, so you have an entire folder of files to upload to your server.

A more serious issue with saving in HTML from the PowerPoint software is that the resulting web presentation is optimized for Internet Explorer. More often than not, it will not display properly for website visitors who are using other browsers. Free open source software may be a stronger choice in this instance. OpenOffice Impress, the PowerPoint look-alike from OpenOffice.org, lets you create a PPT presentation and slideshow from scratch, and it will also convert an existing PowerPoint presentation to HTML in a form that's compatible with a broader range of browsers.

To learn more click here

Malta Acquires Historic Map Collection

Lawyer and historian Dr Albert Ganado has reached an agreement with Heritage Malta for the government agency to acquire his unique collection of antique maps of the island the Times of Malta reported. The Albert Ganado Map Collection is the largest, most complete collection of antique maps of Malta in the world, containing unique maps rarely seen on the market. The collection consists of 19 manuscript maps, and 431 printed maps made between 1507 and 1899, many printed before the first atlas of the Malta was printed 1570. In return for his map collection Dr. Ganado will receive title to the government-owned home where he lives. The maps will be kept in the National Museum of Fine Arts in Valletta.

To learn more check out GeoCartablog.com

Part 2: 4 Ways to Put a PowerPoint Presentation on Your Web Site

by Rebecca Leaman from http://www.wildapricot.com
Part 2 or 4

If your organization makes PowerPoint slideshows for special events, meetings and conferences, you've probably put a lot of time and effort into creating each one. Why not get extra mileage from those PowerPoint presentations by putting them onto your website or blog for others to see?

Here are four different ways to share PowerPoint files on the Web:

Get a Widget

Hands down, the easiest way to share a PowerPoint presentation on your website is through a free service like SlideShare.net. Think of it as something like YouTube for slide shows.

Upload your PPT, PPS, or even PDF files to SlideShare and they're converted into shared media. Copy a snippet of code to embed your presentation directly in your own web page (or simply link to your presentation page on SlideShare’s hosting service) and select the level of privacy you want for each file.

One notable advantage here is that viewers can choose to watch your presentation in full-screen format — a very useful feature if you have fine-detailed images or on-screen text you don't want your viewers to miss. You can even choose to sync the slideshow with an uploaded audio file to create an easy screencast. Comment and tag functions are included on the SlideShare site, so your organization might even benefit from the social networking aspect of the service.

But what if your organization would prefer to keep all your files on your own web space, rather than relying on a third-party service? No problem; there are several more options for getting PowerPoint onto the Web.

To learn more click here

Can I Use the World of Maps Clip Art Maps in Publications?

> QUESTION: With the purchase of a membership, am I allowed to download
> maps to be printed in a book to sell . . .? Also, if the answer is
> yes, can your maps be edited/changed using Publisher?
>
ANSWER: Thank you for visiting our site and for your question. The
answer is yes you may use our maps in producing your book. They are
royalty free and once you purchase the subscription you will not need
to pay any additional fees. If you at some point move to an electronic
version we have licenses for that purpose. But for print everything is
fine.

I am not sure about Publisher and if it can edit eps files. Our maps
come in several formats. Adobe Illustrator eps files being the most
popular for working with print. Most people use the Adobe suite of
products to produce print publications. Illustrator for customizing and
Indesign for layout. You will need to check if Publisher can open and
edit eps. We also include maps in PowerPoint, which can be easily
edited ands output as jpg files and jpg format which could be edited
in Photoshop. The Illustrator files are the most flexible.

Please feel free to call me to discuss and I will try to help

thank you again for asking, bruce jones

Part 1: 4 Ways to Put a PowerPoint Presentation on Your Web Site

by Rebecca Leaman from http://www.wildapricot.com

Part 1 of 4

If your organization makes PowerPoint slideshows for special events, meetings and conferences, you've probably put a lot of time and effort into creating each one. Why not get extra mileage from those PowerPoint presentations by putting them onto your website or blog for others to see?

Here are four different ways to share PowerPoint files on the Web:

Upload and Link

Yes, you could just upload a PowerPoint file to your web space and link to it as you would to any other file. Visitors click and download the file to view on their own computers. Of course, that will only work if all of the users already have PowerPoint (or compatible software) installed on their computers, so you may want to convert your slideshow to a PDF document format or publish a link to Microsoft's free PowerPoint Viewer.

Realistically, however, how many of your visitors will want to go to the bother of downloading and installing software, just to watch your slideshow? You can get around this by saving your PowerPoint show as a PDF format document and linking to that, but it still requires most of your viewers to download the file to their own computers in order to view it.

When the actual presentation is integrated into your website, as part of the online content, your visitors need do nothing more than click and watch. Your message gets delivered to more people, more easily — and that's the whole point of the Internet.

To learn more click here

A nice compliment on our maps

We received a nice compliment today from a customer in Maryland.

"I got a hot request today from a key client, thought Iand before
heading out to his office, I thought I 'd check the web to see if there
was anything out there to improve on my five-year-old map files. Did I
say Wow?

These were perfect--clean, accurate, compact, thorough, fully editable,
VERY well notated, you name it. GREAT download page--I only needed
five states today, and that 's what I grabbed.

I\'ve been desktopping for 25 years and this really is one of the best,
most straightforward products I 've ever run into."

thank you, Larry

Antique and Historical Map Collection Release Date July 15

We have a release date on our Antique and Historical Maps! Yea!!!

After almost 3 years of work pulling together all of our Antique and Historical maps, organizing them, cleaning them up, building the collections, designing the packaging, and putting together the PDF directories we can now announce a release date.

We will release our new royalty free, jpg, clip art Antique and Historical Map collection on Tuesday, July 15.

This new collection of over 125 royalty free, jpg maps on 3 CD-ROMs is made up of antique and vintage maps from the 1500s to the 1900s. It includes; World, North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Middle East, some Countries, Cities and States, and United States maps.

These maps are perfect for presentations, graphic design, illustrations, web sites and education projects.

Our new collection of royalty free, jpg, clip art Antique and Historical Maps will release on Tuesday, July 15, Yea!!!.

Because this release is so special we will also be including for a limited time several Free Bonuses with the collection. Pulling from some of our other collections are more royalty free jpg maps including;

• over 300 CIA country and regional maps

• over 250 World Fact Book Maps and Flags.

• Plus several hundred jpg and Adobe Illustrator eps maps from our own World of Maps collection. Including World, US, States, County, World Region, Country and Globes.

• We might even have a really, really special bonus coming, details to come

Making for a fantastic collection of royalty free maps from today and yesterday.

So watch your emails and the web site for more detailed info on the July 15 release of our Antique and Historical vintage clip art collection. Pricing info coming on Thursday, July 10th.

http://antiquehistoricalmaps.blogspot.com/

Thank you Bruce Jones


P.S. Be sure to sign up on the mailing list to get free hi-res Antique Map samples and download the free pdf directories of every map in the collection.

Sign up at http://antiquehistoricalmaps.blogspot.com/

We are publishing a book on our travels in the US can we use your maps to illustrate?

Today's question on use of our royalty free maps.

Thank you for visiting our site and for your question. No problem at all. Our maps are royalty free and can be used in publications or for building a web site. No additional cost involved once you make the initial purchase.

If you only need a couple of maps then the www.MapsforDesign.com site will work great. If you need lots, like each state, we also have a subscription site where you can download any and all of our maps for $149.95 for a year of access. Take a look at http://www.bjdesign.com.

This would save you some money if you need more than three or so. You can also purchase the CD-Rom.

I would also check what you need to edit the maps. Publications usually want eps files from Adobe Illustrator so you would use our editable eps format maps and customize them in Illustrator. But you would need Adobe Illustrator on your computer.

You can also do some of this in PowerPoint and save the files as jpg, this is sort of the cheap way of doing it. I would check with your publisher first on how they want the graphics. Either way we have lots of maps that would work and they are ready to go.

thank you for asking and if you have any questions please contact me

bruce jones

Wondering if you are able to offer an editable maps of the United Kingdom by Postal District

> We get this question on and off about zip and postal code maps, this
> one is from the United Kingdom.

Thank you for visiting our site and for your question. We haven't drawn
any maps along postal district lines, they are much tougher to deal
with and change quite often and aren't requested that often. Also there
isn't any readily available source for the info like there is for
county and country maps.

I usually recommend people to www.creativeforceinc.com and also to

www.zipcodemaps.com, but I don't think they have powerpoint maps and am
not sure about maps for the UK, but they are a place to start. If you
are using Adobe Illustrator you can also check out

www.mapresources.com, they have some 3 digit postal maps Getting this
kind of info especially for countries other than the US is often quite
hard. It took a year to get the license from your government for the UK
district administration map that we sell.

I might also check out www.mapinfo.com they are the main company for
plotting data on a map for major consumer companies analyzing their
marketing efforts. They do go down to the street level and zip and
postal codes play a much bigger roll in that area. Also check out

www.territorymapper.com, they are a cheaper alternative that many of my
customers use.

I might also check with your local county planning board, they very
often have electronic maps for city planning and it might work for your
needs.

hope this help, bruce jones

10 Tips for Adobe Illustrator

Hi Maps for Design users, this just came across our desk from
Shutterstock.com, the royalty free photo site. It is on 10 tips for
using Adobe Illustrator.

Including:
1. Learn the Keyboard Shortcuts
2, Copy in Place
3. Option/Alt and Shift Drag
4. Learn the Smart Guides
5. Flatten Transparency
6. Group Items to Move Them (I am always recommending this to our
customers, great tip)
7. Transform Again
8. Blend Shapes
9. Work with Text Boxes
10. Changing a Star to a Triangle

Check out all the info at:

http://www.shutterstock.com/newsletter/49/article3.html

Adding Cities to PowerPoint Maps

Question: I want to add several cities to one of your maps. The cities
are Madrid, Toledo, Avila, Segovia, Sevilla, Cordova, Granada,
Barcelona. How do I do this

Answer: Thank you for visiting our site and for your question. If you
are using our PowerPoint editable maps you can easily add in what ever
text you might need. The maps are completely editable. Just use the
text tool and type your city on the edge somewhere, format it to the
size and font that you want. Then using the pointer move it to the
correct location. I would also add in a little circle or square to mark
the city, For the cities you mentioned you could use the Europe map.

check out this link for map
http://www.mapsfordesign.com/shop/product.php?

productid=16257&cat=253&page=2

We also put together a video on this.
http://mapsfordesignhowto.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-to-add-text-to-

powerpoint-slide.html

Hope this answers your question
thank you.
bruce jones

How to Split a State in Half

We get this question all the time and just wanted to revisit the topic
and to highlight all of our How To Videos for customizing our
PowerPoint Maps.

We have produced a series of videos on how to customize your maps.
Please contact me if you are still stuck, and I will try to help. The
video covers it pretty well

Please click on the link below for How to Split a State
http://mapsfordesignhowto.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-to-divide-

powerpoint-clipart-map-in.html

Please click on this link for all of our How to Video
http://mapsfordesignhowto.blogspot.com/

thank you, bruce jones

USA Map to Track the Election

Question: I want to get a US map of the 50 states that I can download
and that I can color to show which states are likely to go Republican
in November, which are likely to go Democratic and which are "swing"
states. What do you have?

Answer: thank you for visiting our site and for your question. We have
two editable USA maps in PowerPoint that would work for you. The
difference is one has two letter state names and the other has the full
name. Both are fully editable with each state an individual element
that you can color using the fill bucket in the Drawing Bar. For the
swing states you can use the pattern fill in the paint bucket and
choose a two color pattern. Should work just fine. Click on the link
below to review the maps

http://www.mapsfordesign.com/shop/home.php?cat=249

Just register on the site and order the map. You will be able to
download it right after the order form processes.

Any questions please contact me and I can help
thank you, bruce jones

I wanted to know if you can create maps with only the states or countries you want?

Question: I wanted to know if you can create maps with only the states
or countries you want

Answer: Thank you for visiting our site and for your question. Yes you
can, wither you are working in PowerPoint or Illustrator you can create
a custom map. All of the states, counties or countries are individual
elements that can be customized, colored, deleted, moved around, what
ever you want to do.

If you wanted to set up just the Pacific Northwest say, just delete the
other states, move the remaining ones to the center of the screen and
there you go, a custom territory. All pretty easy.

Hope this helps, let me know if you have further questions.

thank you, bruce jones

4 New Customizing Videos for PowerPoint

Click on the How to Videos link in the upper left corner of this blog for 4 new customizing videos we released the weekend.

Two videos on some of our favorite customizing tips including Part 1, use of the shift key, grouping and ungrouping, and Part 2, enlarging and the Snap To Grid option.

A video on converting PowerPoint files to jpg graphics for your web site.

And finally look over our shoulder and watch us solve a customers complex customizing problem on a regional county map.

Send us your PowerPoint map questions and we might turn them into a video. Stay tuned more to come.

Is your total U.S. county map editable (meaning each county or the state in its entirety)?

Today's Question: Is Every US State and County Editable?

Answer: Yes every state or county in our map is an individual element that can be customized, colored, deleted, moved around. The counties themselves are grouped together by state to help you keep organized. But all elements are individual. If you are using Adobe Illustrator make sure you check out the layers features, it will help you a lot with keeping things organized.

thank you, bruce jones

USA Map with Capitals for Book

Customer Question: Can you supply a suitable map of the USA covering all states to use in a book covering a trip we did covering all the 48 lower US states. We would love it if the map showed state Capitols

Answer: We have a number of US maps that would help with your project. My recommendation is that if you are publishing a book you probably want to work in Adobe Illustrator so that you can produce the best and sharpest graphic.

From Illustrator you can customized all you want and then export it as an .eps or .ai file for your desk top publishing program where you can lay out the book.

I have attached a black and white jpg file of one of the maps with capitals so you can see what it looks like. We also have this in color. All of our illustrator maps are completely editable, each state or block of text is an individual element. You might also want to use some of our individual states to give more detail when you are describing that place.

Hope this helps, please contact me if you need further info

thank you, bruce jones

Video on Coloring Land on County Map

How to Video on how to change a map color when it is part of a Grouped County Map.

1. Click on a single map say Ohio, Ungroup it, you will see that you now have two groups, text and land. Don't need to Ungroup any further.

2. Click in the ocean to De-Select the map

3. Click on just the Ohio counties to select the land and then choose a new color from the Drawing Tool Bar

4. Once the color has been changed, drag around the entire state with your pointer to Reselect the two groupings, the text and the land and Regroup them together, that will keep that state whole and a single unit until you are ready to do something new.

5. Do the process for each state. Ungroup, change land color, Regroup.

Are All of the Countries Represented in the World Maps?

> RECENT QUESTION: I noticed the domestic maps appear to be
> comprehensive. What are the world maps like? Are all countries
> represented, and can they be broken down in the same manner as the
> U.S. maps? Appears to be a great product.
Rego Park, New York

Hi and thank you for coming to our website and for your question. Yes
we do have several world maps with individual countries in them,
including a Mercator Projection and a Robinson project. One of the
Mercator maps also has country names on it. One of our favorites for
setting up world sales or product territories

Along with our world maps are regional maps with individual countries
that can be customized. We also have 42 major country maps with each
one broken down by administrative district. All of the countries,
states or country PowerPoint maps have individual elements that can be
edited and customized.

thank you for visiting, please let me know if you have additional
questions.

bruce jones

How large can your maps be printed without loosing clarity of the image?

Customer Questions: How large can your maps be printed without loosing clarity of the image? Tracy

Hi Tracy, thank you for visiting our site and for our question. If you are using our Adobe Illustrator maps then you can blow them up as large as you want. Illustrator files are vector files. If you are looking for nooks and crannies then they will get less but the quality of the line will remain sharp and clear.

If you are using our PowerPoint maps they are also vector and can be blown up. We have customers that enlarge them to make larger maps for presentations.

Our JPG maps are bit mapped and do loose resolution at they enlarge.

As always the quality does depend on the printer. We also have lots of samples that you can download and test.

thank you again for stopping by
bruce jones

Question on Using Maps on a Web Site

Question on inserting a part of a map into a web page?

Do you know how I can insert one part of a map into a web page. Each state has 3 parts, full map with names, map, and just names. I only want one page in my web. Any ideas? I am very new to power point.
Tammy

Hi Tammy, Each of our PowerPoint Maps come with a least three slides, Text and Land, just Land and just the Text, this gives you a lot of options. What I would do is to customize which ever map works best for your project. Then delete the other slides. You can do this under the EDIT pull down menu, select DELETE on the slide you want to delete, and then save the file as a JPG file-this is one of the options available to you in the SAVE AS command under the FILE menu. You will now have a jpg file that can go into your web page or into Photoshop to be saved as a GIF file for your site. You just want to watch the size of the file, but this is how you can get a pretty decent map out of PowerPoint. You can also give me a call and I can try walking you through the process.

Give us your questions, we love to help.

Question on Coloring a Country?

A recent question on coloring a country:

Okay, dumb question here. I have a county map and I changed some counties to no fill (white) and I need to change them to another color, it won’t let me highlight county now. Help!
Tam

Hi Tam,
You should be able to select them by clicking on the border of the country with your pointer. Then you can fill using the paint bucket fill in the pop up menu in drawing bar along the bottom. You might also have to send the county that is next to it to the back because it is actually sitting behind that one. The arrange function for SENDING TO BACK is in the DRAW popup menu all the way to the left on the drawing bar. You should now be able to click on the line of the county that you want and give it some color.

Please contact us with your questions, glad to help

How to Add Text to a PowerPoint Map Slide

How to Video showing how to add text to a PowerPoint clipart state or county map slide.

To add text select the TEXT INSERTION tool in the DRAWING TOOL BAR, usually located along the bottom of your slide window. Click anywhere on the slide and begin typing.

Use the FORMATING PALLET or the pull down menus at the top or your screen to customize with fonts, size, and color. Text blocks can be moved around the screen by clicking, holding and dragging on the grey box that surrounds the text. This box is visible after you have clicked on the text.

To delete a text box, select is with the pointer and then click on the gray box surrounding the type. Hitting the DELETE key on your keyboard will delete the text.

Our maps can be completely edited in PowerPoint. Every state, county, country or text block is an individual editable element. They can be colored, customized, move or deleted elements as you want. PowerPoint has a very nice collection of editing and drawing tools, located either along the bottom or along the side of your screen.

How to Divide a PowerPoint Map In-half

How to Video showing how to divide a PowerPoint clipart state or county map into two territories and color them differently. PowerPoint isn't really a drawing program but we have found a fairly effective way of doing this. Below are two ways to handle this.

The first is to copy the state and paste it right on top or on the side so that you can work on it. Go to the DRAW Pop Up menu in the Tool Bar and select EDIT POINTS, you will see all of the drawing points or handles. You then click on each point with the mouse pointer, while you hold down the Control key on the PC or the Option key on the Mac, the selected point will then disappear. You work your way nibbling around the area you want to delete. You end up at some point with a part of a state. Give it its own color and stroke or line and place it on top of the other map. And presto you have a state that looks to the viewer like you have cut it in half. But in reality is made up of two pieces, a full state and half state.

A second way is to use one of the line tools (I like the one that just uses straight lines) and zoom in to 400% and trace over the outline of the state with the drawing tools. Moving around it, tracing the shape of the state and just the part you want to keep. Give it a color and now you have again what looks like a state cut in half.

The drawing tools are located in the AUTO SHAPES pop up menu in the DRAWING TOOL BAR. In AUTO SHAPES select LINES, (we like the middle line on the bottom row, the FREE FORM LINE tool). With this line tool selected you can now trace over the map, making a complete closed path by clicking point by point around th edge. Bring the line back to the beginning point and give two quick clicks and you will have an object that can be filled with a new color.

To make this easier locate the Zoom Box in the upper right hand corner of the top tool bar and select 300 or 400% so you can really see what is going on. If you need to you can adjust the points by selecting the new object with your pointer and choosing EDIT POINTS from the DRAW popup menu on the far left of the tool bar. Also make sure SNAP TO GRID is not checked. This method isn't perfect but will work pretty well and allows you to set up the partial territories.

If you are using the EPS Adobe Illustrator version of our maps you can use the SCISSORS tool and cut the border and then re-join the lines giving you two halves.

How do I Enlarge or Reduce an Object in PowerPoint?

How to Video showing how to enlarge or reduce a group of clipart state, country or county PowerPoint map.

To enlarge several states or counties you need to GROUP them together.
1 Hold down the Shift key and using the pointer CLICK using the right button on the PC mouse and the regular click on the Mac mouse, on the states you want to enlarge together.

2 Once the states are selected click on the DRAW popup menu in the TOOL BAR along the bottom and choose GROUP.

3 You will now see just 8 handles on your selected group. Place your pointer over one of the lower left or right corner handles. Click, and hold down the mouse button and drag the handle in a diagonal 45 degree direction. This will enlarge the group. Release your mouse button when you have the correct size. Pulling out, the group will enlarge, moving in towards the center it will reduce. Holding down the SHIFT key will keep things proportional.

4 Text elements will need to be re-adjusted manually, they will move to the correct place but in PowerPoint they do not scale up or down. You may also need to UNGROUP them and move them where needed. The text can be resized using the Font Tools along the top of the screen.

How To Color a State, County or Country in PowerPoint

How to Video for coloring an editable PowerPoint clipart map .

Select the state or country with the pointer by clicking on it. On the PC use the right button of the mouse, on the Mac just click with the mouse. You will see 8 little handles appear around it, this tells you the object has been selected. Choose a color from the Fill Bucket in the Drawing Tool Bar usually located along the bottom of the PowerPoint slide.

Learn More About Our Maps

Editable MS PowerPoint and EPS clipart maps for sales and marketing presentations, illustrations, and websites. Royalty Free, World, USA, States, County, Countries, World Regions, and Globes.

Each state or country is an individual element that can be customized, changed, colored however you like.

Perfect for sales and marketing presentations, showing sales territories, advertising, graphic design, building maps for websites, anywhere a royalty free map is needed

Visit our www.mapsfordesign.com website for more info

New Hampshire is the State for Today

Our future revolves around New Hampshire today, tomorrow it moves to South Carolina. Make sure you vote