How to let users color in map…?

Hi all –
I’ve made some vector maps for a company to use to divide up distributer territories. They would very much like it if there was some way for them to be able to "color in" the various countries so as to code them for their associated reps. What I mean is, this information would not be static (otherwise I’d just do it), and the limitation is that they wouldn’t really want to buy/learn some graphics app in order to do it. Basically they have your normal MS Office Suite or whatever and other bus apps and that’s it.

I did the maps – Europe, South and Central America, etc – as vectors in Illustrator so they can scale well and also I was thinking they could do easy click-fills if there was some free or cheap svg/vector/eps editor that I could show them how to use.

The JPEG/BMP MS Paint option is really not suitable but PDF or bitmap conversion is not out of the question….

I’m pretty sure that this cannot be done in Acrobat, but does anyone have any ideas? I may have to write a Visual Basic app if all else fails but that would be really not desirable for anyone involved (meaning me).

TIA.
pauld

pauld wrote:

Hi all –
I’ve made some vector maps for a company to use to divide up distributer territories. They would very much like it if there was some way for them to be able to "color in" the various countries so as to code them for their associated reps. What I mean is, this information would not be static (otherwise I’d just do it), and the limitation is that they wouldn’t really want to buy/learn some graphics app in order to do it. Basically they have your normal MS Office Suite or whatever and other bus apps and that’s it.

I did the maps – Europe, South and Central America, etc – as vectors in Illustrator so they can scale well and also I was thinking they could do easy click-fills if there was some free or cheap svg/vector/eps editor that I could show them how to use.

The JPEG/BMP MS Paint option is really not suitable but PDF or bitmap conversion is not out of the question….

I’m pretty sure that this cannot be done in Acrobat, but does anyone have any ideas? I may have to write a Visual Basic app if all else fails but that would be really not desirable for anyone involved (meaning me).

TIA.
pauld

You could probably do the maps as HTML document that could be colored with a javascript. They do have browsers, right?

That way no special program necessary and simple instructions on the page would probably be all you need.

—
Comic book sketches and artwork:
http://www.sover.net/~hannigan/edjh.html
Comics art for sale:
http://www.sover.net/~hannigan/batsale.html

pauld wrote:

Hi all –
I’ve made some vector maps for a company to use to divide up distributer territories. They would very much like it if there was some way for them to be able to "color in" the various countries so as to code them for their associated reps. What I mean is, this information would not be static (otherwise I’d just do it), and the limitation is that they wouldn’t really want to buy/learn some graphics app in order to do it. Basically they have your normal MS Office Suite or whatever and other bus apps and that’s it.

I did the maps – Europe, South and Central America, etc – as vectors in Illustrator so they can scale well and also I was thinking they could do easy click-fills if there was some free or cheap svg/vector/eps editor that I could show them how to use.

The JPEG/BMP MS Paint option is really not suitable but PDF or bitmap conversion is not out of the question….

I’m pretty sure that this cannot be done in Acrobat, but does anyone have any ideas? I may have to write a Visual Basic app if all else fails but that would be really not desirable for anyone involved (meaning me).

TIA.
pauld

You could probably do the maps as HTML document that could be colored with a javascript. They do have browsers, right?

That way no special program necessary and simple instructions on the page would probably be all you need.

—
Comic book sketches and artwork:
http://www.sover.net/~hannigan/edjh.html
Comics art for sale:
http://www.sover.net/~hannigan/batsale.html

edjh wrote:

pauld wrote:

Hi all –
I’ve made some vector maps for a company to use to divide up distributer territories. They would very much like it if there was some way for them to be able to "color in" the various countries so as to code them for their associated reps. What I mean is, this information would not be static (otherwise I’d just do it), and the limitation is that they wouldn’t really want to buy/learn some graphics app in order to do it. Basically they have your normal MS Office Suite or whatever and other bus apps and that’s it.

I did the maps – Europe, South and Central America, etc – as vectors in Illustrator so they can scale well and also I was thinking they could do easy click-fills if there was some free or cheap svg/vector/eps editor that I could show them how to use.

The JPEG/BMP MS Paint option is really not suitable but PDF or bitmap conversion is not out of the question….

I’m pretty sure that this cannot be done in Acrobat, but does anyone have any ideas? I may have to write a Visual Basic app if all else fails but that would be really not desirable for anyone involved (meaning me).

TIA.
pauld

You could probably do the maps as HTML document that could be colored with a javascript. They do have browsers, right?

That way no special program necessary and simple instructions on the page would probably be all you need.

Sounds like a possibility. I don’t have much knowledge of javascript though, so I’m wondering if you could elaborate a bit. For example, could the script handle vector images or would they need to be rasterized and mapped or something? Pardon my ignorance….web stuff is not my strong suit.

Thanks again,
pauld

—
Comic book sketches and artwork:
http://www.sover.net/~hannigan/edjh.html
Comics art for sale:
http://www.sover.net/~hannigan/batsale.html

edjh wrote:

pauld wrote:

Hi all –
I’ve made some vector maps for a company to use to divide up distributer territories. They would very much like it if there was some way for them to be able to "color in" the various countries so as to code them for their associated reps. What I mean is, this information would not be static (otherwise I’d just do it), and the limitation is that they wouldn’t really want to buy/learn some graphics app in order to do it. Basically they have your normal MS Office Suite or whatever and other bus apps and that’s it.

I did the maps – Europe, South and Central America, etc – as vectors in Illustrator so they can scale well and also I was thinking they could do easy click-fills if there was some free or cheap svg/vector/eps editor that I could show them how to use.

The JPEG/BMP MS Paint option is really not suitable but PDF or bitmap conversion is not out of the question….

I’m pretty sure that this cannot be done in Acrobat, but does anyone have any ideas? I may have to write a Visual Basic app if all else fails but that would be really not desirable for anyone involved (meaning me).

You could probably do the maps as HTML document that could be colored with a javascript. They do have browsers, right?

That way no special program necessary and simple instructions on the page would probably be all you need.

Sounds like a possibility. I don’t have much knowledge of javascript though, so I’m wondering if you could elaborate a bit. For example, could the script handle vector images or would they need to be rasterized and mapped or something? Pardon my ignorance….web stuff is not my strong suit.

pauld wrote:

edjh wrote:

pauld wrote:

Hi all –
I’ve made some vector maps for a company to use to divide up distributer territories. They would very much like it if there was some way for them to be able to "color in" the various countries so as to code them for their associated reps. What I mean is, this information would not be static (otherwise I’d just do it), and the limitation is that they wouldn’t really want to buy/learn some graphics app in order to do it. Basically they have your normal MS Office Suite or whatever and other bus apps and that’s it.

I did the maps – Europe, South and Central America, etc – as vectors in Illustrator so they can scale well and also I was thinking they could do easy click-fills if there was some free or cheap svg/vector/eps editor that I could show them how to use.

The JPEG/BMP MS Paint option is really not suitable but PDF or bitmap conversion is not out of the question….

I’m pretty sure that this cannot be done in Acrobat, but does anyone have any ideas? I may have to write a Visual Basic app if all else fails but that would be really not desirable for anyone involved (meaning me).

You could probably do the maps as HTML document that could be colored with a javascript. They do have browsers, right?

That way no special program necessary and simple instructions on the page would probably be all you need.

Sounds like a possibility. I don’t have much knowledge of javascript though, so I’m wondering if you could elaborate a bit. For example, could the script handle vector images or would they need to be rasterized and mapped or something? Pardon my ignorance….web stuff is not my strong suit.

PHP is server side web scripting language which has access to some image manipulation like resizing but I doubt it could fill in countries with colors. What you really need is a GIS type program, but assuming that’s overkill how about having them open a GIF in Windows ‘Paint’, paintbucket the colors & save.

I’ve made some vector maps for a company to use to divide up distributer territories. They would very much like it if there was some way for them to be able to "color in" the various countries so as to code them for their associated reps. What I mean is, this information would not be static (otherwise I’d just do it), and the limitation is that they wouldn’t really want to buy/learn some graphics app in order to do it. Basically they have your normal MS Office Suite or whatever and other bus apps and that’s it.

In article ,
"pauld" wrote:

I’ve made some vector maps for a company to use to divide up distributer territories. They would very much like it if there was some way for them to be able to "color in" the various countries so as to code them for their associated reps. What I mean is, this information would not be static (otherwise I’d just do it), and the limitation is that they wouldn’t really want to buy/learn some graphics app in order to do it. Basically they have your normal MS Office Suite or whatever and other bus apps and that’s it.

You know, I have a similar problem. I’ve designed a blueprint for a house; the people who are building it do not have hammers or saws or screwdrivers. What should they do?

That’s a bit like what you are asking here. If you have clients who wish to perform a task, they need to have the tools that let them perform that task.

The task you are describing is very, very easy and takes less than five seconds…if your client has a vector program like Illustrator. Without the right tool, it is almost impossible.

—
Art, photography, shareware, polyamory, literature, kink: all at http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html
Nanohazard, Geek shirts, and more: http://www.villaintees.com