Noob trying to make maps for print guidebook/ or OSM to AI

General talk
1

Hi and thanks in advance for the help.

I am trying to get maps ready for a guidebook and am having all sorts of problems. The best case scenario to to somehow go from OSM to end up with nice and pretty Adobe Illustrator .ai or .eps files.

Here is what I’ve tried -

Downloaded Cloudmade .shp shapefiles, then use a trial subscription to MapPublisher to Illustrator. AI crashed with Germany but can manage smaller countries like Lichtenstein. But AI file is too rough for me to create a finished map. Just a bunch of black lines.

Downloaded Kosmos, but cannot figure out how to get .kpr drawings into .ai vector drawings

Exported .pdf files from OSM to Illustrator directly, but having resolution issues (rastersized on me?). I need 300 dpi.

Read how to export OSM to AI at wiki.openstreetmap and haven’t managed to figure that one out.

Short of going out to look for vector ready maps from resellers (some very expensive resellers)…anyone have a solution?

2

You already mentioned the wiki … also this page? http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Exporting_to_Adobe_Illustrator

and have you tried the webservice at http://www.flosm.de/ai/ as listed in the first line? Doesn’t it work?

3

http://www.flosm.de/ai/ does work and thanks for the link. So far the data is ok. It is missing info shown on OSM and has an additional problem of deleting out needed information when downloaded. I am sure they do this to make managable file sizes, but it means I need to keep looking for a solution