[Freegis-list] freeprint

[Paolo Cavallini]

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Hi all.
As end users, we are trying to set up a complete GIS system, based on free 
software only. I must say things are not very easy, but generally everything 
is quite functional and powerful.
One issue that remains, I believe, is easy map printing (ArcView style). As I 
see it, several solutions are possible, but all suffer from one or more 
limitations:
- -GRASS: ps.map accepts only one raster as background (not possible to tile 
rasters, unless one patches them, which can be quite difficult for large 
projects at high resolution); "printing" to a png monitor does help, but 
scale and legend are missing, and quality is not very good for vector data
- -qgis only exports png maps, without scale and legend; I did not find a way of 
setting output resolution
- -gmt is very far from "normal" usage, I believe
- -mapserver is apparently more flexible, but I did not try it yet (no .deb 
package).

In addition, many of these programs are not packaged for major distributions 
(debian, redhat, mandrake...), and this definitely does not help.
If I am missing something, I would appreciate your suggestions. I am sure if 
we could set up a short guide on how to do easy free map printing, this could 
be useful for other users too.

All the best.
- -- 
Paolo Cavallini
cavallini at faunalia.it            www.faunalia.it
Piazza Garibaldi 5 - 56025 Pontedera (PI), Italy   Tel: (+39)348-3801953
GPG key @: www.faunalia.it/Public_key_Paolo.asc
Only free software: www.gnu.org / www.linux.org
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