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Is there a way to get map data (for example from OpenStreetMaps) on my eReader to access it in a user friendly way?

I've already thought about two ways to display maps on my reader:

  • Generate one big PDF file and scroll around in it
  • Generate Images from the regions I'd like and put together up an epub-File so I can browse through the pages.

Both ways are not really a good way to display maps. While the PDF-solution would allow me to move and zoom in a more natural way, I'm not sure if my eReader would be able to handle such a big file. A "map book" to browse would be even harder to navigate in...

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Since I find scrolling and zooming on an ebook cumbersome, what I would do with a large image/map is divide it in smaller pieces, slightly smaller than my screen resolution (30 or so pixel less -> 15 on each side). After that generate separate HTML pages, for each image part, and put in hyper-links from page to page on the sides (alternatively I would investigate if I could make the image selectable using image maps).

If the map was divided in 9 pieces:

1 2 3 
4 5 6
7 8 9

Displaying number 5 would look like:

     2
 +-------+
 |       |
 |       |
 |       |
4|       |6
 |       |
 |       |
 |       |
 +-------+
     8

Selecting the numbers would get you to that piece of the map. You could extend this with numbers near the corners to go the diagonally linked image pieces.

As with maps printed in books (with numbers to the top and bottom of a page with the page numbers connecting map pieces), you could have a range of pixels overlap between the map-parts.

If you have many pieces, or this is not a one off, you should probably write a program that takes care of the division of the image, the HTML generation and combining in an EPUB.

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  • Thanks a lot! This sounds like a great idea. I'll give it a try.
    – DIF
    Mar 11, 2014 at 10:11
  • 2
    You might want the maps to have slight overlapping, like the non-folding maps in the german ADAC auto-atlas. You might also be able to make the maps clickable with regions, doing a way with the seperate buttons.
    – Anthon
    Mar 11, 2014 at 11:10
  • you might want to add arrows and even double arrows ("⟪ ⟫" to jump two pages), instead of numbers.
    – Arye Eidelman
    Mar 11, 2014 at 14:38
  • @DIF Did it work?
    – Karsten W.
    Oct 12, 2014 at 17:48

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