Creating printable handouts

How does it work?

Once you have created a BattleMap, full of phases and information, you might want a print out of it. BattleMaps lets you do this by creating handouts in Adobe Acrobat (or 'PDF') format which can then be printed or e-mailed.

You will need a copy of the Adobe Acrobat Reader program installed on your computer to be able to do this but don't worry. Adobe give it away, free, on their website. See www.adobe.com/downloads/ for more information on how to get this program.

Creating the handouts.

There are two places in the menus where you can create handouts. Both achieve the same effect. Either choose 'Tools', then 'prepare handouts for printing' or choose 'BattleMap files' then 'create printable handouts'.

Two methods for selecting 'handouts'

Both menu options will then pop-up the 'prepare handouts' window as below. You can then choose which parts of the BattleMap you would like to include in the handouts.

In the 'Details to include...' section,

• a tick in the 'main description and location' box will include most of the details entered on the 'Map information' page.
• a tick in the next box will include the author and copyright details as entered on the 'Map information' page.
• a tick in the next box, adds the 'Order of Battle' details to the handouts (see 'Creating an 'Order of Battle'')
• a tick in the fourth box places images of each phase into the handouts, starting each new phase on a new page
• a tick in the fifth box adds the descriptions of the phases (see 'Changing phase details') to the images.
• The last box adds the details of each military unit, including full name and notes (see 'Changing military objects') to each phase.

Simply choose which parts of the BattleMap to include, then click the 'generate the handouts' button to produce the 'pdf' file. Clicking 'cancel' returns you to the main screen without generating the handouts.

After the handouts have been prepared, a window will appear for you to choose the file name and location for the handouts, similar to that below.

Once you click 'save' the handout file will be saved for you to either e-mail, print or otherwise distribute. Also the system will attempt to start Adobe Acrobat Reader passing it the newly created file for you to view.