How to Create a Marked Up TOPO to Print or Send :)

[WapitiTalk1]

Allrighty then.. After working back and forth with Mikeha33 today, I think we have a pretty decent set of instructions that will help hunters select a topo map from Caltopo.com, create a PDF file, open it with MS Paint, mark it up with some potential scouting areas, and either send it to someone for review, or, print it out. Long story short, this is how you can mark up a topo map and send it to your hunting buddy. It may seem a bit complicated but works just fine if you follow the step by step instructions below.

Thanks Mike for letting me use you as a test case

1. Open up Caltopo.com (free topographic map site). When opening Caltopo.com, do not use Chrome as your browser, Internet Explorer works best. In Chrome, you cannot copy a PDF, even though it's generated automatically. If your pages normally open in IE, you shouldn’t have any issues.

2. Once in Caltop.com, zoom in (roll mouse to zoom in) and drag left or right (left click mouse and hold to drag map left/right) and find the map area you're interested in.

3. Once area is found and acceptable detail is showing (zoomed in), click "Print" in upper right hand corner. A drop down will appear and you next click "Create a PDF". Adjust red square by dragging the red dot in the middle of the red square, or, by dragging one of the four red arrows. Once done, click "Generate PDF" in the lower left hand corner.

4. You'll see a PDF version of your topo map appear. Hold Ctrl on your keyboard and roll mouse roller backwards to make the image smaller so you can see the entire map on your page. Left click once on the map (map turns kind of blue) and then go to the upper left and click Edit then Copy. The image is now stored and ready for you to place in Paint. If you want to print these maps yourself, and have the ability to print on 11x17 paper, that can be selected, as well as your paper orientation, from "portrait" to "landscape" to have your selected map area to be more horizontal (landscape) vs. vertical (portrait)

5. Locate MS Paint on your computer and open it. Click arrow below the clipboard picture in upper left corner and then click paste. The image should now be in the Paint program. It will be a large version so you need to make it a bit smaller. Use the scale bar in the lower right hand corner (drag little bar to the left) to adjust your map so you can see the majority of it. You should be able to view the entire map at approximately 50% zoom on the slider bar.

6. Mark your maps up how you'd like to by clicking on the symbols on top (i.e., star) and using the text tool (A button) to type in some notes for that particular spot you've marked. You can use whatever colors you like.

7. Now, you'll click the little disc logo in the upper left to save your map. Save it as Beaver Creek Map (or whatever the map area name is).png. Will look like BeaverCreek.png. I like to reopen the png file with MS Office Picture Manager as you can use the Auto Correct bottom to make it brighter. If you plan to share with partners, make sure you save the file to a specific location on your PC, or you'll end up probably having to search through .png files all over your computer.

[Mikeha33]

Anytime Rory, glad to help.
This is already being used as a valuable tool between my partners and I, all who live more than 3 hours away from each other. Just the Caltopo website itself I recommend, with the versatility of its maps at the click of a mouse.

Thanks for putting this out there. Until we walked through it, I had no idea how to mark up these maps. It is way easier than I figured it would be.

[WapitiTalk1]

Thought I'd bring this one back to the top as we have quite a few new members that may be interested. It's a good way to mark up a map to share with a hunting buddy via email. Here's an example of what the result looks like. I captured a snapshot of a Caltopo.com map, transferred it to MS Paint, and marked it up with some points of interest from a fictitious hunt last year. Hope some of you can use this information. RJ

[zpd307]

thank you phantom, errr rory. I brought up an old map thread for this purpose. to help guys with map planning.

[Olydog09]

Thanks for sharing Rory. That is awesome for creating a database of scouting maps. Much appreciated.

[WapitiTalk1]

Gary, Scott,
No problem. Once you've completed marking up/saving your topo map with Paint, go back to the web page, click the far right drop down, and select "satellite". Go through the same procedures with exporting, etc., and now you'll have both a topo and an aerial image of the same area There are a several other layering features you can use by using both the available selections on the left side of the page, or as I mentioned, the upper right drop down. Enjoy.

[ElkNut1]

Nice thread guys! As you can see it's been shadowed here on the Elk Forum as well, great info!

ElkNut1

[Wyo67]

Awesome... Works great!

[stringunner]

Great thread. Very helpful.

[one_elk]

Great site thanks for the heads up....

[Steve G]

Very helpful tool. Thank you very much.