Customising vector art base maps
The advice below relates to our downloadable vector artwork maps. (It does not apply to our dynamic online maps.)
Vector artwork maps are easy to customise using industry standard vector graphics editing software. Above all we recommend Adobe Illustrator®, followed by free Affinity / Canva.
Adobe Illustrator® (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, about £33 inc vat for PAYG month)
Illustrator is used by many professional graphic designers for vector artwork. Maproom base maps are created in Illustrator, and you have the greatest range of options when editing in Illustrator, including easy layer selections and contiguous paths for curving road labels. If a map specification includes Illustrator, the package will include a raw Illustrator file in it with universal fonts (generally Helvetica) for universal compatibility. In addition to this, the PDF examples supplied in the bundles can also be opened in Illustrator with all of their editable layers available.
We recommend Adobe Illustrator for advanced map editing, and especially if you want to make extensive edits to road labels. However, if you are not already an Adobe subscriber and you only want to make light edits to a map, try Affinity first (see below), as Illustrator may be overkill.
If you want to try Illustrator, you can usually download a fully functioning copy of Illustrator on a free trial at Adobe.com, or subscribe to Illustrator for about £33 per month (PAYG, cancel anytime). However, please avoid getting locked in to an Adobe “annual billed monthly” subscription (which is about £22 per month – £264 over a year, locked in for the year) unless you are a regular user of Adobe products.
Affinity / Canva (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, free)
Affinity is powerful and completely free design software. Simply use the Vector tab to import either the AI (Adobe Illustrator), SVG or PDF file, and all the map layers will be available for you to edit. If your map includes a hillshading layer, then use the Raster tab to import the hillshading file.
If you are not already an Adobe subscriber then we recommend you try Affinity first instead of Adobe Illustrator. This is because the learning curve is lower with Affinity (it has fewer advanced tools than Illustrator), but it is sufficient for many straightforward map edits. You may be able to achieve everything you need free with Affinity without having to sign up for premium Adobe software.
There is a shortcoming with editing in Affinity: on street maps with curving road labels, the road names and numbers are rendered as individual letters for each part of the curve, rather than on a single path as in Illustrator. Therefore, if you are planning to make extensive edits to road labels, you will probably find the job quicker to achieve in Illustrator rather than in Affinity.
Please also be aware that a very detailed map base may take several minutes to open in Affinity, depending on your computer’s processing power. We do not tag our most detailed maps (e.g. the detailed Greater London maps) as suitable for editing in Affinity for this reason. Use Illustrator instead.
Affinity is owned by Canva, which is popular with marketing professionals. The free plan for Canva (which allows you to use Affinity for free) will itself let you import the map PDF and make basic edits to map components including changing and adding extra labels. You only need a paid Canva plan if you need extra storage or want to use more AI (Artificial Intelligence) whilst designing.
CorelDRAW
If you are a CorelDRAW user, you should be able to open the Illustrator AI, PDF and SVG file versions with their editable layers. See Looking to open an AI file? on the Corel Discovery Center.
PDF editors
All our vector art map bundles include PDF files which can be annotated using PDF editing software. Our current favourite for people using Macs is PDF Expert, which has a free version. Adobe Acrobat is for PCs and Macs. You can do things like add labels, but don’t expect advanced layer editing with PDF editors.
Photoshop®
Some of our maps contain a raster art layer (pixel-based rather than vector artwork) for hillshading. Adobe Photoshop is the most popular software used for raster images and is suitable for editing raster layers in our relief / physical maps. It is also possible to use Photoshop to make simple alterations to the JPEGs and PDFs included in the downloads. However, if you want to access all of the individual vector artwork layers – such as if you want to turn off all roads on the map with a single click – we strongly recommend you use Adobe’s sister Illustrator instead (see above), or Affinity (see above), which integrates vector, raster and labelling in one package. Illustrator and Affinity are generally much better than Photoshop for editing maps.
Code editors, e.g. Visual Studio Code, Notepad++
Strictly for techies: SVG files can be opened in any basic code editing program. Use this if you want to link the map to a database or XML code. You can preview the map in a browser window at the same time as working in code, refreshing the browser to see your code changes on the fly. Maps that are supplied as SVG are listed here.
Advice for complete beginners
We have deliberately built maps that will be easy to edit, especially in Adobe Illustrator or Affinity. Even beginners can quickly grasp how to make simple colour changes with a few clicks of the mouse.
However, maps are some of the most complex types of artwork, especially street maps with lots of labels and layers. If you have never edited digital art before and do not have the time or inclination to learn how to use graphics software, then we recommend you enquire about our bespoke mapping services.