Yes and no. I can't honor individual requests to email maps. I simply don't
have the time. In most cases, the reason I'm asked this is because of
problems downloading the maps in the first place. There's an old saying,
"Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you
feed him for a lifetime." I'll spend the time necessary to help you
resolve the problem.
Nine times out of ten, reading
this FAQ will provide the solution to the problem. If
you still can't make it work, drop me an
e-mail, or contact me via IM,
and I'll see what I can do to help.
You can sign up to automatically get notification of new and updated maps mailed to you.
I recommend this as an effective, hassle free way
of always having up to date maps. You can join the
updates mailing list.
If I change the map, you'll be notified by e-mail.
(If you're planning on using the
maps on your website, please read the
restrictions on using
the maps first.)
Downloading tips:
Don't even try viewing these maps with your browser. Unless your computer
is hooked up to NASA's mission control wall displays, you can't display them
on your screen.
(Update: I know what hardware NASA uses for their big displays. They can't display these maps either.)
Your browser is not optimized for displaying images that large,
and may have trouble doing it at all. What you should do is save the maps directly
to a file, without displaying it.
If you are on a PC, do this by
going to the appropriate map page and then
right-clicking on the map's link
and choosing Save Target As... (MSIE) or
Save Link As... (Netscape).
On a Mac, click and hold on the map name, and when the pop up menu
appears, select Download Link to Disk (MSIE) or Save this Link as...
(Netscape).
Web browsers, at least any I've seen so far, are not designed to display
or print very large images. The maps are designed the print on a standard
300 dpi inkjet or laserjet printer. The image size is approximately 2400x3150
pixels. Web browsers usually display images that fit on a screen (1024x768).
If you try to print the maps from a web browser, it tries to print one page
for each screen's worth of information. The result is a one page map
printing on numerous pages.
There's no way I'm aware of to get a web browser to print the maps correctly.
For this reason, I recommend using a separate gif-viewing program to view
and print the maps. Read the other answers in this section of the FAQ
for the correct procedures to download and print the maps.
As a convienience for users, I have placed a zip file containing all
of the maps on this website. You can download it by clicking
here. This zip file is currently about 5 meg
in length.
Web browsers, at least any I've seen so far, are not designed to display
or print very large images. The maps are designed the print on a standard
300 dpi inkjet or laserjet printer. The image size is approximately 2400x3150
pixels. Web browsers usually display images that fit on a screen (1024x768).
Sometimes, the web browser will consume so much memory trying to display the
map that it will either give up, crash, or crash your system. What you
should do is use the browser only to download the map (not display it), and
use a separate gif viewing program to view and print the maps. See the
other answers in this section of the FAQ
for the correct procedures to download and print the maps.
All of the map files have a '.gif' extension.
Several people have reported
downloading files with a '.art' extension (which do not exist on this website),
or downloading .GIF files that have an invalid format.
This problem will ONLY occur if you are accessing the web from AOL, are using
AOL's internal web browser,
and have image compression turned on. What is
happening is that the AOL proxy/cache system compresses all graphics,
converting them using a 'lossy' compression scheme producing a '.art' file
instead of the original '.gif'.
When the AOL browser requests the '.gif', the AOL proxy/cache sends the
'.art' instead, which the browser knows how to display. This is designed to
speed up the display of photographic images, and works well for that.
There's two things wrong with this - the
'lossy' compression may render the maps unreadable (GIF is a 'lossless'
compression scheme), and, although AOL's built in browser can display '.art'
files, once you save it to disk, nothing else can display it. To fix this
problem, either turn off image compression in the AOL browser,
use a browser external to AOL,
(i.e., a browser that opens in a window outside of AOL; both MSIE
and Netscape will work), or don't
use AOL to access the Internet.
There are three things you must do. You must turn off image compression,
flush your browser cache, and reload the maps. You have to perform the steps
in that order.
The exact procedure to turn off image compression varies somewhat, depending
on which version of AOL you have, and which version of the AOL browser you
have. These are the instructions for AOL 3.0 with MSIE 3.02. If you have
AOL 4.0 or 5.0, or a different browser built into AOL, the procedure may be slightly
different.
To turn off image compression, first start up the AOL browser, then hit the
"Prefs" button. This will bring up a dialog box with several tabs.
Select the "Web Graphics" tab, and then make sure the
"Use compressed graphics" box is NOT checked.
Next, you must flush the browser cache. The cache is sometimes called
"temporary Internet files". To do this, select the "Advanced"
tab in the prefs dialog box. Click on the "Settings..."
button in the "Temporary Internet files" section. This
brings up another dialog box. Click the "Empty Folder..."
button, and then click on the "Yes" button. Then hit both
"OK" buttons to close the Settings and Internet Properties dialog
boxes.
Finally, go and download the maps again. They should be readable now.
UPDATE: I now recommend using Irfanview to print the maps. See the question below about Irfanview for details.
All of the maps are designed to be printed out. They are much too large to
be viewed on the screen. The maps should print well on any 300 dpi laser or
inkjet printer.
DO NOT USE YOUR WEB BROWSER TO PRINT THE MAPS.
Save the maps to a file, and then print the file using a gif
viewing program such as
Paint Shop Pro or
Lview. Both work very well on a PC.
I don't know from personal experience what works on a Mac, but I've included
Lord Threnin's directions
below for those of you with a Mac.
The maps are approximately 2400x3300 pixels (that's 300x300dpi on an 8.5x11"
sheet of paper, allowing for a 1/4" margin on each edge.) When you print the map
out, it should fill the entire page (and fit on a single page.) If it doesn't, then most
likely either your printer, or your software, is set to a resolution other than 300x300,
or the margins are set to more than 1/4 inch.
It is very important that your software does not 'scale' the maps. Most software
can zoom the image in or out to make it fit the entire page; many programs do this
by default. It is very important that this feature be disabled - scaling these maps
can cause lines to become distorted, the text to be unreadable, and some of the
lines may even disappear. If you see this happening, you need to turn off automatic
image scaling.
UPDATE: I now recommend using Irfanview to print the maps. See the question below about Irfanview for details.
For Paint Shop Pro version 5.01, there
are two steps. The first is to tell PSP that the image is 300 dpi instead
of its default 72 dpi. The second step is to set it to print the image
full size. To set the DPI to 300, select
File/Preferences/General Program Preferences...
and then choose the Rulers and Units tab. Change the
Default Resolution to 300 Pixels/inch, and hit OK.
Note: The resolution must be set before loading the map image into PSP.
If you've already loaded the map into PSP, close the map window (or PSP itself)
and load the map again after setting the resolution.
To set the image to display at full size, select
File/Page Setup...
and make sure Fit to page is NOT checked,
Scale: is set to 100,
and Center on pageIS checked.
Finally, select Portrait or Landscape
as appropriate.
UPDATE: I now recommend using Irfanview to print the maps. See the question below about Irfanview for details.
For Paint Shop Pro version 4.12,
select File/Page Setup... and then make sure
the Maintain aspect ratio,
Use full page, and
Center on page options are all unchecked, and all four margins are
set to 0.25". Also, make sure the page orientation (portrait/landscape) matches
the orientation of the map (L/P in the last column of the map index).
UPDATE: I now recommend using Irfanview to print the maps. See the question below about Irfanview for details.
For Lview version 3.1 (an old version, but that's
the one I use) under Options/Printer options.... make sure
Fit to Printer Page is unchecked, and both the rows and columns
sliders in Custom Shrink/Enlarge: are set to 100%.
Options/Fit on load should be set to
Never.
UPDATE: I now recommend using Irfanview to print the maps. See the question below about Irfanview for details.
Yes! The ancient version of
Lview that I use is nowhere near as fancy
or capable as the current version, but it does have one advantage. Unlike
the current Pro v2.0, version 3.1 is freeware, not shareware. Of course, since
they want to sell you the current version, they don't make the old freeware
version available anymore. But it still exists, and it's free. It can't
manipulate images as well as newer software, and doesn't understand long file
names or other Windows 95 stuff. But it can print the maps just fine. If you
want to use it, you can download it
here. This
isn't a self installing program, but a plain old zip file. Just make a
directory somewhere, and unzip the zip file into that directory.
The best thing to use is
Graphic Converter
version 2.8 or later. First off, select Preferences from the File
menu. Then select General and Print tabs and set margins to 0.30
inches and click OK. Now just open the GIF with GC and select Print
from the File menu and click on Enlarge/Reduce Area to Fit Page then
click on Print in the dialogue window. On maps with 'landscape' orientation,
those with an 'L' in the last column of the table at the top of this page,
you'll want to switch to horizontal orientation.
To switch
orientation, select Print Setup, click on the horizontal icon and
click OK, then follow the above instructions for printing. This works
well with Mac OS8 and a StyleWriter II. Lastly, NEVER diddle with the
resolution or depth!
UPDATE: I now recommend using Irfanview to print the maps. See the question below about Irfanview for details.
Cielvair recently showed me a new and easy way to
print the maps. Instead of using PsP or Lview, he used Microsoft Word to
print the maps. I tried it and it does in fact work well. It has the
advantage of potentially working on both PC's and Mac's, and also is already
present on many systems. It also doesn't require saving the map on disk
first. The procedure potentially might work with other word processing
programs as well, such as Works. The disadvantage is that it requires a lot
of memory to run, or a lot of patience. On a 24 meg system, it took several
minutes and a LOT of disk activity to print the map. With more memory I
suspect it would be much quicker. The directions below work on a PC running
Windows 95, MSIE 3.02a, and Word 7.0 (not the Office 97 version). You might
need to change the procedure slightly for your system.
Start by displaying the map in your web browser. Right click on the map
and select 'Copy' on the popup menu. This copies the map to the clipboard.
Open up Word, and select 'Page Setup...' on the File menu. On the Margins tab,
change the margins so they are 0.20 or 0.25 inches wide (the default margins
are way too large). Next, go to the 'Paper Size' tab an select the correct
page orientation for the map you want to print, Landscape or Portrait. Hit
'OK' to close the dialog box. Select 'Paste' on the Edit menu to copy the
map from the clipboard into Word. When it finishes loading the map, hit the
print button in Word.
The first thing to do is go to the Irfanview website at
http://www.irfanview.com and download and install Irfanview. If you're
on a PC, this is the best program around. It's free and easy to use.
To print a map, open a map file (.gif) with Irfanview. Then hit Print on the File menu.
In the dialog box that opens up, select the correct printer,
then select the Features tab and select either Landscape or Portrait, as appropriate.
Next hit the Print button.
A second dialog box will come up. You may need to play with the settings on this page to get the maps to print
correctly. If lines are missing, try changing the settings. On my system, I get the best results by
sellecting Customand, for Portrait, setting Width to 8.00 and Height to 10.25. Reverse those
two numbers for Landscape maps. Select Center image on Page. Set Left Margin and Right Margin
to 0.00.
Then hit the Print button.
That's it!
