Discussion: Condes graphic layout question

I'm trying to overlay some .png graphic files into a Condes file. I've specifically chosen the .png format because I really want a clear background which you can't get in .jpg for example (the critical item is a special border with a clear centre for the map to show through).
For some reason Condes is putting a white background behind my .png objects despite my having the white background option unchecked.

Is this a known issue? Am I doing something wrong? Any suggestions how to get around it?

I don't have Condes, but assuming that your png has an alpha channel with the background map window set to full transparency, perhaps someone can confirm that Condes supports alpha channel transparency.

As for a workaround, can you use the png as a background map in the OCAD map file?

This might be helpful...... http://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-using-web-transparenc...

Having used OCAD9, Condes and Purple Pen to plan courses, my advice would be to use the latter. It's the easiest, most user-friendly and intuitive of the three. It's also free to download and use.

bchubb, I have the border as a point symbol in ocad which I can important into any of our club maps and place over top of the map to automatically 'crop it'. That works fine for me and some of our more experienced club members that are quite familiar with ocad. I want to provide another option that doesn't require playing around in OCAD and messing with layering colours and setting it up multiple times if you want to print different courses at different scales or on different page sizes.

Theoretically this should be fairly easy to do in Condes except for the problem I've mentioned. And yes Bryan, I've opened the png file in other software to confirm that the file truly doesn't have a transparent background (i.e. the alpha channel is working).

rf_fozzy - our club chose a couple of years ago to get a club Condes license. I don't think the club will want to go back on that decision just now.

I use a different approach for cropping. Instead of than a mask, I create a line symbol and then export partial maps. I just create a crop line for each layout (scale/paper size), keep the line in it's own OCAD file and import the croplines to the big map as needed.

The layouts are also created in OCAD but are separate OCAD files with the cropped partial maps as templates only, so easily swapped if there are changes to the original map.

Files made this way worked for a Condes user couple weeks ago.

Purple Pen costs nothing to buy. It's freeware, so you can use it as well as Condes.

http://purplepen.golde.org/