5 More How to Instruction Videos for Customizing PPT Maps

In our previous instructional video list we highlighted some of our popular videos. This post continues with some more videos on customizing our editable World of Maps PowerPoint maps. These videos can be watch at www.mapsfordesign.com or www.bjdesign.com

6. Setting Up a Country Sales and Marketing Territory. Our editable PowerPoint county maps are very popular for highlighting a sales territory for people. We sell our maps to many sales and marketing managers and this is a very common request. Can I set up a simple territory map for my sales people. Our maps work great for this and this video walks you through the sets. View this video.

7. How to Divide a PowerPoint Clip Art Map In-half. This video covers one of our most asked questions. How to divide a state or county in half. Very ofter a state is covered by more than one sales rep and the manager needs to show this. PowerPoint isn't really a graphic program but we have come up with a number of techniques to do this.

8. How to Enlarge or Reduce an Object in PowerPoint. A common problem is that you have highlighted several states or counties for a presentation but they aren't big enough in the slide. This video shows you how to do this, bigger or smaller.

9. Printable, Blank, Outline USA and World Maps. We sell mostly PowerPoint and Illustrator maps with colors in them ready to go. But alot of people use blank maps that they can mark up and draw on. Our maps are great for doing this if you just remove the color. Plus most blank printable maps you find on the web can't be customized for your project. Ours, using PowerPoint which almost everyone has, can easily be. Remove the color and print it out. This video walks you through the steps, view it on YouTube.

10. This is a two part video, Favorite PowerPoint Customizing Tips, Parts 1 and 2. We have learned a lot over the years using our maps. In these two videos we release this info. We talk about Grouping and Ungrouping, using the Shift Key, and in Part 2 Enlarging and Reducing and the Snap to Grid feature.

Hope you enjoy them and find them useful. Let us know of any questions you have, maybe we will make it into a video.

Blank Printable Canada Outline Map, no Text

Same as the map below but just without the text names. This blank, printable Canada map can be used for your personal, corporate or educational project. It is royalty free, it can't be resold or freely distributed but you can edit or copy it without any issues. This map prints out to 8.5 x 11. We have a full range of completely editable maps on our download clip art maps sites that you can check out if you need one that you can change however you need. www.bjdesign.com

We have also pull together a simple video on how to make up a blank map from one of our editable Powerpoint Maps, please see below

Canada Printable Blank Map with Text Name

Blank, Printable map of Canada with text names and province borders. This jpg Canada map is royalty free and can be used for personal, corporate or educational projects. You can download it off this blog and edit and use it for your own projects. This map is part of our large collection of Free, Royalty Free US, World, States, Countries and Globes maps.

Top How to Videos for Customizing PowerPoint Maps

Over the last couple of years we have produced quite a few instructional or "How To Videos" on customizing our editable PowerPoint Map. These have been very popular and helpful to our customers. Below is a list of some of our most popular. All of these can be seen on either of our World of Maps web sites. www.mapsfordesign.com or www.bjdesign.com

1. Editable USA and Canada PowerPoint and Illustrator Royalty Free Clip Art Maps. Gives a good overview of our editable maps and how they work. This video can be viewed on YouTube

2. How Do I Color an Object in a PowerPoint Slide. Goes all how to easily select a state or country and color it to highlight a territory or location.

3. How to Add Text to a PowerPoint Slide. After adding color and setting up your territory, adding some text labels or sales peoples names is next. This video covers how to add text to the PowerPoint slide.

4. How Do I Set Up Hyperlinks on a PowerPoint Map? Setting up hyperlinks isn't something you do every day but is a real nice feature to have in your bag of trick to dress up a presentation. This video walks you through the steps.

5. How to Convert a PowerPoint Slide to a JPG File for a Website. PowerPoint has a lot of great features and one of them is to act like a temporary desktop publishing or photo program. Because our maps are so editable you can quickly set up a custom map graphic. I often end up recommending using PowerPoint as a quick work around to produce a graphic for some other purpose other than a presentation. Making a web graphic is one of those things. This video walks you through the very simple technique to turn a PowerPoint slide into a JPG file that can be used for a web graphic

How to Color a US State or Country Map in a PowerPoint Slide

We have had great responses to our How to Videos that we post on bjdesign.com and mapsfordesign.com walking customers through the basic steps of customizing our USA, Canada or World Editable PowerPoint Maps. In this series of posts we are going to break down the Coloring a US State or Country PowerPoint Map video and show you the steps screen by screen. Remember our editable PowerPoint maps also work with Apple Keynote presentation software

You can also view this and all of our How to Customize our Editable PowerPoint Map Videos at www.mapsfordesign.com or www.bjdesign.com


Click to Read Part 1

Part 1. How to Color a US State PowerPoint Map to Set up a Sales Territory

Starting with anyone of our basic editable PowerPoint Maps, US, World, State County, Country, or World Regions, they all work the same.

Click or Select the state or country that you want to color by clicking on it with the mouse pointer. 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. Make sure you have the Format Pallette or the Drawing Tools Window open.

You can view this video and all of our How to Customize our Editable PowerPoint Map Videos at www.mapsfordesign.com or www.bjdesign.com


Click to Read Part 2

Part 2. How to Color a US State PowerPoint Map to Set up a Sales or Marketing Map

Once you have a state or country selected, (remember you do this by clicking on the state with the mouse pointer) choose a color from the Fill Bucket in the Drawing Tool Bar usually located along the bottom of the PowerPoint slide or on one side.

Or choose a color from the Colors, Weights and Fills option in the Format Palette. If you don’t see it, this Palette it is located in the VIEW pull down menu.

On the new PowerPoint 2007 the fill options are located up at the top in the ribbon, Click on the Colors Button in the Design Tab in the Themes group. The Design Tab appears when an object is selected. Select your color

You can view this video and all of our How to Customize our Editable PowerPoint Map Videos at www.mapsfordesign.com or www.bjdesign.com

Click to read Part 3

Part 3. How to Color a US State PowerPoint Map to Set up a Sales Territory

You have now selected one state or country and filled it with a color. (remember you do this by clicking on the state with the mouse pointer and choosing a color from the Fill Bucket in the Drawing Tool Bar usually located along the bottom of the PowerPoint slide or on one side.

When done deselect by clicking off the image and start on your next state or country.

A couple of tips to help you manage your project:

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. When you are done with a section you might Group it together to help you manage your project.

You can view this video and all of our How to Customize our Editable PowerPoint Map Videos at www.mapsfordesign.com or www.bjdesign.com

http://mapsfordesign.blogspot.com/2009/10/how-to-color-us-state-or-country-map-in.html

Blank Printable USA 2 Letter State Map

Blank Printable Outline Map of the US with 2 letter state names. Perfect for quickly sketching out some marketing data or a class assignment. This royalty free jpg map is located on our new www.freeusandworldmaps.com site. The home for all kinds of royalty free jpg maps. Including printable blank maps as well as all kind of colored US, World, States, Countries, and World Regions and Globes.

To learn more click here for www.freeUSandWorldMaps.com

Maps for Design.com Editable PowerPoint Maps

After a brief break we have relaunched our single downloadable editable Powerpoint clip art map site, MapsforDesign.com. The site carries a full line of editable PowerPoint maps for sales and marketing presentations, illustrations, web sites and classroom projects. Containing PPT maps of the World, US, States, Counties, World Regions, Countries and Globes. The site has a new look, is more efficient and will have an expanded collection of maps. Along with all the new features we have added the full line of our "How To Customize" videos to the site. Maps can be purchases individually for your projects. You can also purchase a CD if you wanted the entire collection.

If you need more than three PowerPoint maps we recommend you use our subscription site www.bjdesign.com where you can download as many maps as you want for one fixed price. Either way we have got you covered. BJDesign also carries the full line of Adobe Illustrator and jpg maps.

For an individual map, http://www.mapsfordesign.com
If you need lots of maps, http://www.bjdesign.com

Strange Maps: An Atlas of Cartographic Curiosities

Well now here is a interesting new book coming out later this month. Sounds like it might be a lot of fun, the book is based off of the Strange Maps blog by Frank Jacobs

Spanning many centuries, all continents, and the realms of outer space and the imagination, a collection of 138 unique graphics combining beautiful full-color illustrations with quirky statistics and smart social commentary. The result is a distinctive illustrated guide to the world. Categories of cartographic curiosities include: • Literary Creations, featuring a map of Thomas More's Utopia and the world of George Orwell's 1984

• Misconceptions, such as a lavish seventeenth century map depicting California as an island
• Political Parody, containing the "Jesusland map" and other humorous takes on voter profiles
• Whatchamacallit, including a map of the area codes for regions where the rapper Ludacris sings about having "hoes"
• Obscure Proposals, capturing Thomas Jefferson's vision for dividing the Northwest Territory into ten states with names such as Polypotamia and Assenisipia
• Fantastic Maps, with a depiction of what the globe might look like if the sea and land were inverted

Strange Maps is a fascinating tour of all things weird and wonderful in the world of cartography.

Check it out at Strange Maps: An Atlas of Cartographic Curiosities

Also check out the Strange Maps blog

Focus on Europe Day, Scandinavia

Well it is starting to get cold and fall is fast approaching, leaves will be turning soon. We were thinking of Europe and our attention drifted up to the Scandinavian countries, Norway, Sweden Finland and Denmark. We had produced this editable PowerPoint and illustrator maps a while back and thought it was time to bring it back out again.

Keep your attention to the blog, our MapsforDesign.com site is about to be relaunched, new shopping cart, easier to navigate, and a tighter focus on PowerPoint map for presentations. We have been working away on it for the past several months. In the mean time all of our maps are available at our subscription site, www.bjdesign.com for any of your projects. Remember we love questions so ask away.

Blank Printable World Mercator Map

We have been working away on the new free map site, putting up all kinds of royalty free jpg maps, World, USA, States, Countries, Regions, Globes, and Antique Maps. One of the sections that we have is for free blank, printable world and also USA maps. Above is a free example of a World Mercator map. This can be download and used for your map projects. As always we have all our original editable PowerPoint and Illustrator maps over on www.bjdesign.com. To see the new jpg free maps click this link: www.freeusandworldmaps.com

New Free JPG Map Website

We are please to announce the launch of a new website offering royalty free jpg maps for design, illustration, websites, and education. All of the maps are free to download and use for projects. The maps are perfect for printing or using in your projects. All maps are in jpg format and can easily be customized in any photo editing program.

The site includes World projections, US maps, US state and county maps, World regions, Globes, Countries. Plus soon to come will be Antique/Historical maps CD Roms and lots of resources.

To learn more click on over to www.freeusandworldmaps.com

http://www.bjdesign.com, Join us on a tour of our World of Maps Clip Art Site our downloadable subscription map site. World of Maps at www.bjdesign is a collection of royalty free, Editable MS PowerPoint and Adobe Illustrator clipart maps for sales and marketing presentations, illustrations, graphic design, education and websites. This large collection of easy to download clip art contains editable maps of the World, USA, States, County, Countries, World Regions, and Globes.

With over 90 country maps, detailed US County maps, US State Maps, World Projections, Globes, and World Regions, you have one of the best collections for building your presentations. Remember in all of our editable PowerPoint and Illustrator state or country that each element is an individual object that can be customized, changed, colored however you like. The maps are easy to customize and change. We also include jpg copies of each map in color and black/white outline. Plus a very extensive FAQ section with how to tips and videos for customizing our maps, describing how to color, add text, enlarge or reduce, build territories and more.

Our editable royalty free clip art maps are perfect for sales and marketing presentations, showing sales territories, advertising, graphic design, building maps for websites, anywhere a royalty free map is needed

Helpful How To Customize Clip Art Maps Video Tips

Thank you for the comment,

"Thanks, World of Maps for the video tips. I am in the process of adding names of cities to our maps and this is very helpful. I am pleased with the map program. Our salesmen have also appreciated the crispness of the finished product as opposed to the hand colored maps that were done in the past."

We now have all of our How To Edit and Customize video tips up online. You can check them out in our FAQ section http://www.bjdesign.com/html/questions.html

Copyright and Using Clip Art Maps in a Book

Customer Question
I work for a Korean publishing company and would like to use one of your maps in our book. Does ordering the CD-Rom map for $199.95 clear all the copyrights problem? Is there a need to credit the map in usage? Also, can we use your map again later in other publications as well, or are we supposed to contact you for each usage? It'll be very helpful if you can let us know about these questions. Thank you!

bjdesign.com World of Maps Answer
Thank you for your visit and for your question. Our maps are used all the time in publications, book, magazine, etc. The maps are royalty free and you can use them in your publications today and tomorrow and into the future as much as you want. You do not need to give any credit and we do not need to be notified and there are no additional payments for usage. The maps are fully editable in Adobe Illustrator and PowerPoint, we also just completed latest upgrade, version 8.0 with 40+ new country maps and many other updates so there is a lot to choose from for your projects. Send us a link when you are done with your project, we would love to see the end result.

Setting Up A Clickable Map on a Web Site

Customer Question
I am building a web site that needs a USA map that once a state is clicked on counties show up, then I need to click on a county and have a page showing suppliers to show up. Do you have a map that will let me do this?

World of Maps Answer
Thank you for your question. The basic answer is yes. We have all of the map elements needed to build a drill down map. Starting with the top level USA maps and then each state or county to follow up. One of the ways to build this on your site is to make an image map with hot zones. This is usually done using your web authoring program. You would highlight with a tool the outer edge of each state and then assign it a link. The link then goes to a new page with the new information. You can see all of our maps at www.bjdesign.com

The other way people do this is with Flash, which is an animation program from Adobe. Our illustrator maps will work with Flash. There are also some good companies out there you could look at that have developed packages for this, you might want to check them out. http://www.flashmaps.com, http://www.flashimap.com/ and http://www.maps4.com/index.html.

I am not sure which way you are going. We have nice collection of illustrator maps that can be easily customized if you are going in the image map method, and if you know Flash then I would look at the companies above.

Please Buy Maps on Our Subscription Site, www.bjdesign.com

For the time being please purchase our maps on our subscription/download site, www.bjdesign.com. We are doing some upgrades on www.mapsfordesign.com and it is temporally off line. www.bjdesign.com is our subscription site and offers unlimited access and downloads of our editable clip art for a year for one price of everything that is on the site. What you download is yours to keep. It is a great deal if you need more than 2 or 3 maps. We also sell the CD Rom there. The CD Rom gives you a complete back up of the entire collection plus many additional maps plus you get full access to our download collections so you can start your project right away. And as always the CD shipping is no charge for anywhere in the world.

Same great maps, two ways to buy.

Selecting Little Individule Countries in Our World Maps

We were just asked a question about selecting some of the little tiny countries in our world maps so that they can be colored.

Answer. The easiest way is to use the zoom feature of PowerPoint or Adobe Illustrator, 300% seems to work pretty well. Zoom in and select with the a click of your pointer. Once selected the country can be colored or changed

If you are using a map with names on it, it is often easiest to just move the name out of the way and then select the country with your pointer.

And a third way is to drag your pointer over or around the country. Holding down the mouse button and drag around the country your want to select. You will see dotted lines appear on the screen and this tells you that what is inside of them will be selected. In PowerPoint you have to go all around the object to select it, but if you just cross over border nothing will happen. In Illustrator an object will be selected if any part of the dragging mouse pointer goes over the edge.

For more information be sure to check out our How to Instructional Videos at MapsforDesign.com