How are the effects defined? If the effects are defined in percentage of view width instead of map units or percentage of map extents they tend to disappear when you export the whole map, because the actual "view" during a high-res export is pretty large.

Percent of View is a very useful effect setting if working with the map in CC3+ is the primary goal rather than exporting it. You can for example use it to ensure that things like text glow are the same absolute size as you zoom in and out, instead of having it almost disappear as you zoom out or overly large as you zoom in. But it is less useful when you are producing exports, although there are some instances it works there too, but it is important to realize that this setting means that what you get out isn't the same as on screen (not necessarily a bad thing).

But yea, it shouldn't be the default setting, that's not the optimal choice.

To elaborate a bit on JimP's answer here. Symbols are by default scaled to 1/1000th of the map width in overland maps. There are several good reasons for this, but if you want your symbols smaller, you can permanently change the default symbol scale for a map by going to :CC2PRESETS:. The value found here is the value that will be used when you click the set normal button Jim refers to. The "default" scale for symbols in general is 1, but be aware that trying to map a map of that size using symbol scale 1 will be quite a lot of work. The small symbols may not look as good either when the map is zoomed out.

Those spikes are miter joints, the issue happens when nodes are placed to create very sharp corners on wide lines. It happens more easily on highly detailed coastlines.

One way to get rid of them is to manually go in and remove some nodes from the coastline to fix it. Remember, it is caused by two close nodes at the base of the spike, there isn't a node at the end. And note that you only need to edit the coastline, which is a separate entity from the landmass. This problem doesn't happen to filled entities like the landmass is.

The second option is to just drop the coast outline altogether, and use a glow effect on the landmass instead, as this completely avoids the problem.

Those are the floorplan and battlemap collections right? If so, yea, they are already included in various other products/annuals

These needs to be installed separately.

Yes

For a full backup, you do need the data directory, install directory, and registry data. No dll's needs to be registered. But I'll normally recommend just backing up the data directory, and instead of backing up registry/install, do a new install and then copy over the data directory (avoid overwriting newer files).

I just love everything you can do with CC3+ thanks to its CAD roots. I've lost count of how many weird things I've done with it that doesn't have anything to do with mapping (Well, I guess some of them can be called mapping in a very wide definition of the term).

For all practical purposes, yes.

As far as I know, no, it can't be automated. There isn't a macro-version of this command

This button is a relic from the time before styles, where you only had a single "set" of symbols. The catalog buttons are meant to load the catalogs belonging to the current active style, and no styles come with a simple catalog, so it is basically useless (and confusing) on modern installs. Unless you hard-code it to the old simple catalog, it is going to just display an empty catalog list most of the time. If a style does define a simple catalog (The main DD3 style actually does this for legacy reasons, put it is just a pointer to the old catalog, and not really a DD3-version of it) you can easily find it by clicking the :CC2SYMICOND: button yo get all catalogs defined for the current stylke.

Everything in the bundle is compatible. Just make sure that when downloading the installers from your profantasy registred user page that you grab the ones that are labeled as being for CC3+ if there are more than one to choose from.

Also, make sure to (re-)install the latest CC3+ update as the last thing you do, as that do some fixing up.

These messages are due to a library file being accidentally copied by an installer into the installation directory. Please close down CC3+ and delete cc2per.dll from your installation directory (c:\program files(x86)\ProFantasy\CC3Plus)

These are normal errors when you are using a style that doesn't have certain tools. Not all styles have all tools. This isn't normally an installation error. For example, dungeon styles doesn't have landmass tools. It can also happen if the style of your map has been changed, which can be changed from :CC2PRESETS:

The forum account is separate from your ProFantasy account, so your credentials will probably work fine over at the registered user's page. If not, you'll have to contact ProFantasy support to fix that.

Note that of course, there is always a chance that your installation is messed up, but in 99% of cases, it is only a map issue (map set up to use wrong style, or style have been manually changed, or map style simply doesn't have those tools) rather than something being wrong with the CC3+ install.

Note that newer products won't neccessarily say this at all, because they are ONLY compatible with CC3+, and nothing else. Every ProFantasy product have been compatible with CC3+ for several years now. However, if you own some very old products from the CC2-era, some of them require a paid upgrade to the new version, but since you said you got the CC3+ bundle deal, everything in that bundle would have been compatible from day 1.

For trace to work, you need to be using a drawing tool, not one of the basic shapes from the right hand toolbars, and you need to place down the first node before you can proceed with the trace. There are some types of drawing tools that don't support trace, but all standard straight/smooth/fractal tools should have the trace option.

You can also check out DogTag's trace tutorial video or my command of the week article.