We love getting questions from customers, it lets us know what is going on and where we need to pay attention with our collections. A question on sharing our editable World of Maps with your team came in today from Jennifer.
Questions:
I was wondering, if we purchased the CD-ROM, would it be restricted to a single/private user or could it be used for business across the team/group?
Answer:
Hi Jennifer, thank you for visiting our site and for your question. You are free to use the maps across your team. We want you to be able to do your job and sharing with your coworkers is part of that. If you are going big, with lots of people and offices then we do have licenses for that, but for your regular team that you work with every day, feel free to share.
PowerPoint has a lot of great uses that a lot of people just don't know about. One of them is outputing jpg files that can be used for print or on your website, kind of a poor mans version of Adobe Illustrator.
We had this great question from Carlie on how to make a hi res jpg file from PowerPoint
Question:
When saving as a jpeg, is there a way to edit the resolution? It automatically saves to 96dpi. I'd like to save as 300dpi
Answer:
Hi, Carlie, thank you for your question. I am assuming you are working out of PowerPoint. Making a jpg file is an easy save as option in the Save As pull down menu under the File menu. Instead of saving the PowerPoint file as a slide deck, just choose jpg.. If you are going to the web then as it saves it is fine, the resolution is 96 dpi, if you are going to print then you might want it higher.
Here is a way to do that. Set up a larger PowerPoint slide, maybe 20" x 20", in document setup, copy the map into it, (this is important, otherwise it gets distorted, don't enlarge the slide with the map in place, copy it onto the new slide), group it, enlarge it and then make the jpg. Then in Photoshop or some other photo editing program you can reduce it down to a smaller size and the resolution will go up proportionally. You can also just resize the jpg in your layout program and the resolution goes up.
So 9 inches at 100dpi, becomes 300dpi at 2.25, a very easy way to make a hi res jpg file.
We get this question now and then on if we sell zip code maps on our download editable map sites. The answer is no, but we usually refere people over to a couple of places that do carry them.
Question:
Do you guys sell zip code boundary maps? I can't seem to find them? or Can one display data on your maps
Answer:
The answer is unfortunately no, our maps are very simple and easy to edit and customize but we don't have any ability to display data or to show zip codes. Folks love what we have but zip code maps are a level or two above what we carry. We do have a very nice collection of editable county maps in a couple of different ways that are great for highlighting marketing data and work very well.
If the customer is a marketing person then I usually send them over to look at www.territorymapper.com. If they have lots of money then I usually say look at www.mapinfo.com, they are the biggies in this area. If the questions comes more from a delivery, transportation directions then I say to look at www.ZipCodeMaps.com. Either of these sites can be very helpful.
We had a great question the other day from a customer named Gene on using our editable clip art maps in a book.
Question:
I am interested in using your maps in a book that I will be publishing. are there royalty fees to pay? do I need to indicate source of the maps on each page or at the end of the book?
Answer:
Hi Gene, thank you for visiting our site and for your question. You are free to use the maps in your book, there are no additional royalties that you have to pay and you do not have to mention the source. If you want to somewhere that is cool but we don't require it at all.
The only restriction we have is if you are making a map clipart book, for that we have a license but other than that no problem at all. Would love to know the subject matter and when you get it done let me know and I will put a link to it on our blog if you want.
Very cool, thank you for asking, please let me know if you have questions.
We had a great question today on how to increase the resolution of a jpg file that you can save out of PowerPoint
Question: When saving as a jpeg, is there a way to edit the resolution? It automatically saves to 96dpi. I'd like to save as 300dpi.
Answer: I am assuming you are working out of PowerPoint, I don't think so. I think it is just an save option. If you are going to the web it is fine, if you are going to print then it might not be.
One solution would be if you could set up a larger PowerPoint slide, maybe 20" x 20", in document setup. Copy the map into it, (this is important, otherwise the map gets distorted), group it, enlarge it and then make the jpg. Then in Photoshop or some other photo editing program you can reduce it down to a smaller size and the resolution will go up proportional. You can also just resize the jpg in your layout program and the resolution goes up.
