GPS for Dummies.pdf - Engineering Surveyor

282Part IV: Using Web-hosted Mapping ServicesAutomatic croppingAutomatic cropping is fast and easy if your graphics program has a crop command.The command automatically removes everything outside of a selectedrectangle, leaving only the image within the rectangle intact.Manual croppingIf your graphics program doesn’t have a crop command, you can crop a mapmanually by copying and pasting what you want. Follow these steps:1. Use the selection tool to select the map.2. In the Edit menu, choose the Copy command.3. Open a new file.4. In the Edit menu, choose the Paste command to place the map into thenew file.Using colors and fontsThe colors and fonts that you use in a map can make a big difference inappearance and readability.ColorsColors let a user quickly differentiate features on a map. A black-and-whitemap might convey the same information as a color map, but hues and shadescan make a map easier to read.Although a number of commercial graphics programsare on the market, I’m a big fan of freesoftware. Here are some free graphics programsI find useful for creating my own maps: DrawPlus 4 (simple to use with lots ofprofessional features): www.freeserifsoftware.com/serif/dp/dp4/index.asp. EVE (a very small, vector graphics programperfect for drawing diagrams and maps):www.goosee.com.Pixels for free OpenOffice-Draw (part of the OpenOfficesuite, which means you also get a wordprocessor, spreadsheet, and presentationsoftware in addition to a graphics program):www.openoffice.org. Zoner Draw 3 (fast with support for lots ofgraphics file types): www.zoner.com/draw3/default.asp.All these programs are more powerful thanPaint, and have object-oriented (vector) drawingcapabilities. Plus, you can’t beat the price.