On another forum, a discussion prompted me to share some things about printing PDF maps. Thought I'd share that information here, as well. Not sure everyone knows this stuff, and I find it incredibly useful. Perhaps others will, as well.
The World of Greyhawk map, by Darlene, is renowned, and adored, by thousands. It is available in PDF format, but it is chopped up into small pieces. What is a fan to do, to get their own Darlene map printed, and mounted, for display on their wall?
Here is an original printed Greyhawk map, mounted on 1/4" plywood, and framed, hanging on my game room wall. This was glued to the plywood using wallpaper paste, by a friend, years ago. He cut a frame out of routed wood, gluing that to the outside. The same can be done with laser printouts of the PDF map. It requires piecemealing the maps together, to form a unified whole. Backing can be thin plywood, MDF, or framing supply cardboard. My recommendation would be to use either plywood, or MDF, as water-based glues will warp cardboard, but this can be overcome with proper framing.
Another side bar technique involves the capability to make copies of large format maps, from the past. For example, if you have a copy of Darlene's map, but you do not want to risk destroying it in the gluing/mounting process described above, you can make color copies of it, at your local office supply/printing shop which commonly have large format, color photocopiers! They also offer laminating services for these large formats!
I took an original Judges Guild Tarantis map, had it copied, and enlarged, and laminated the two copies made! I re-skinned Tarantis as a city called Ganter, for my home game. You can see that one copy has been marked with a black, water-erase pen, by one of my players. The upper map has been enlarged from the original. The large format copiers can do color, if desired. I still have the original Tarantis map, intact, in my collection. I use these copies at my gaming table.
Here is a colorized map of the City-State of the Invincible Overlord, I bought from the revived JG company, several years ago. I used spray adhesive to mount it to 3mm thick cardboard backing, purchased from Michael's. I should have had an enlarged copy, laminated, saving the original, but I was unaware at the time that this was possible. At the time, I was running my game out of this city, but that has changed, so it has not been improved upon, as there is no need.
These are just some interesting tips people may not be aware of. Save your original maps, if you have them, and make color/B&W working copies. If you just have PDF versions of maps, you can make poster maps from them. You can even make enlarged color copies to use at your game table, while keeping the original collage safely in storage. Cheers!
