WotC Maps Layers

[dmontgomery32]

I have heard that the maps images within the DDI PDFs, and their jpg images, have "layers" to remove the GM level markers. This would make it very nice to use in MapTools.

However, I cannot figure out how to remove them. I'm a complete novice at Photoshop and Illustrator, but I thought I could give it a try. So far, no go.

Has anyone done this? If so, can you point me in the right direction? Even a link to a thread that answers this question. I've searched from the forums, to DDI, to Google and I've not found what I'm looking for....

Thanks

[jfrazierjr]

I have heard that the maps images within the DDI PDFs, and their jpg images, have "layers" to remove the GM level markers. This would make it very nice to use in MapTools.

However, I cannot figure out how to remove them. I'm a complete novice at Photoshop and Illustrator, but I thought I could give it a try. So far, no go.

Has anyone done this? If so, can you point me in the right direction? Even a link to a thread that answers this question. I've searched from the forums, to DDI, to Google and I've not found what I'm looking for....

Thanks

Layers in PDF have absolutely NOTHING to do with Photoshop or Illustrator other than the fact that those programs(and many others) also have a thing called layers and all 3 products are created by the Adobe company.

As to your original question, this totally depends upon the program you use to VIEW the pdf. If you have the actual real honest to got Adobe Acrobat(the FULL program that creates PDF files) View(just the view part), which if you are on widows you probably do, then I can't give you exact instructions since I am on Linux and my PDF's open in a program called Document View instead of Acrobat Reader. However, the general flow goes something like this:

Open your PDF in your viewer program.
If you do NOT see a sidebar to the left(ie, only see the entire pdf document), then check the view menu
It may or may not have the word "layers" right there OR in a submenu item within the View menu


On MY MACHINE in Document View, I have to turn on the "Side Pane". By default, this shows me all of "pages" within the file in a thumbnail view for quick navigation. I then have a small dropdown arrow on this side pane that lets me select from: Thumbnails, Attachments, Index, Annotations, Layers, and Bookmarks. I just select the one I want(in this case layers) and it shows a list of all the layers. I don't have any of the WotC pdfs on hand, but I SUSPECT that there would be only one layer named something like "GM Only Items" or whatnot. You would then click that item and it may have a checkbox or some other icon to toggle the visibility of the items on that layer.

One important note!!! Each PDF has it's own list of those things the author chose to expose. For some documents, the Layers section may not even be selectable at all since that author did not enable that feature when building the pdf. Just be aware as I seem to recall some of the WotC pdfs did NOT have layers activated(and they may not have gone back and fixed them)

[Azhrei]

+1

Also be aware that a later version has removed the ability to separate layers, ie. turn them on/off. On the Mac, Acrobat Reader v8 will separate layers like you want, but Acrobat Reader v9 will not. This is why I keep v8 on my laptop.

[Jagged]

I have heard that the maps images within the DDI PDFs, and their jpg images, have "layers" to remove the GM level markers. This would make it very nice to use in MapTools.

However, I cannot figure out how to remove them. I'm a complete novice at Photoshop and Illustrator, but I thought I could give it a try. So far, no go.

Has anyone done this? If so, can you point me in the right direction? Even a link to a thread that answers this question. I've searched from the forums, to DDI, to Google and I've not found what I'm looking for....

Thanks

I am afraid its very much hit and miss, in that WotC are not consistent in their usage. When they have it set up correctly, you just copy the image from the PDF and its pastes without the tokens. If that is not working for you, I expect the image is flat, sorry

[Full Bleed]

I've found that Illustrator is great at letting you deconstruct a PDF page and get at images and other pieces without text and extraneous image overlays. But, as mentioned above, the PDF has to actually contain a layered image to begin with.

If you don't have Illustrator you could try Inkscape (but I can't speak as to whether or not that will work.)