Figuring out printed pages generated per map size....
I'm finally getting to the point where I'm generating maps that I like and want to use. But I'm still figuring out the Cartographer print function. I've determined by trial and error that a 20 x 25 foot map fits nicely on an 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of paper. But I'm confused about what to do for sizes greater than that. As I understand the Cartographer print function, if I don't indicate the number of sheets a map is supposed to be printed on, then the map prints on one sheet of paper, regardless of my intended dimensions (eg., 1" vs. 5 ft prints out as something less than that). But how do I know how many sheets a map of a given size will take to print? I suppose I could figure this out by trial and error, but I assume there's some sort of ratio that everybody but me already understands, and I don't want to waste that much ink reinventing the wheel. This seems like an embarrassingly fundamental question, and I'm sure many of you have the answer. Once you're done rolling your eyes at my newbish question, please help me out. Perhaps I've missed a tutorial that explains this?
Comments
The first thing you need to know is your print scale. For battlemaps, this is usually 5' (Drawing distance) to 1" (Paper distance) , meaning that 5 feet on the drawing will take up 1" on the paper.
So for your 20' x 25' map, that translates to 4" x 5" on paper. Using that, we can see that 8.5" x 11" paper should hold a map of 45' x 55', although because of map border and paper margins, the actual map that will fir is probably more like 40' x 50' (or even 35' x 45' depending on the margins required by your printer)
Basically, to go from drawing to paper, just divide the map dimensions by the drawing distance, then multiply it by the paper distance. In the example above, that would be divide by 5', then multiply by 1". The values for drawing distance and paper distance are found in the print dialog. Once you know how much space it takes up on paper, it should be easy to figure out exactly how many sheets of paper you need.