Map Posters

The extension registers a generator called Map Posters. Run it from the editor's generator or insert menu to open the studio, or use Edit Map Posters on an existing map layer to reopen it on the exact same spot.

Tip. Editing a map layer restores every setting: theme, colors, zoom, pins and shape.

The heading shown at the top of the studio modal. It always reads Map Posters next to the editor brand badge.

A one-line hint under the title. When inserting a new map it reads Poster-style maps of any place on earth, as editable layers.; when editing an existing map it reads Adjust the map, the layer updates in place.

The x button in the top corner closes the studio without inserting or changing anything. Pressing Escape or clicking the dimmed area outside the dialog does the same.

Press and drag anywhere on the map to pan to a new area. The centre latitude and longitude follow your drag and the map re-fetches detail as needed.

Tip. Panning inside already-loaded data is instant; new areas trigger a short load.

Scroll the mouse wheel over the map to zoom in and out. Scrolling up zooms in (smaller radius), scrolling down zooms out (larger radius).

If a pin sits under your pointer, dragging moves that pin instead of panning the map. Release to drop it at the new location.

Tip. Pins are added from the Pins panel and always start in the map centre.

Before a place is chosen, the canvas shows Search for a city, address or landmark to start the map. as a placeholder.

A Loading map data indicator appears over the preview while the geo proxy fetches OpenStreetMap detail for the current view.

Short notices float over the preview for busy, error and truncation states. Examples: Very dense area: some detail was skipped., The map service is busy, retrying, Very large area: showing fewer details. and Could not load map data.

Tip. Errors show in red; informational notices are neutral.

The line © OpenStreetMap contributors is inserted as its own text layer named Attribution, placed over the map. It is not painted into the map image itself, so keep that layer: OpenStreetMap data is licensed under the ODbL and the credit has to stay visible on anything you publish.

The text field where you type a place name, address or landmark. Results appear as you type; press Enter to accept the first result.

Tip. Search runs through the server geo proxy (Nominatim), so the browser never contacts OpenStreetMap directly.

A dropdown list of matching places under the search box. Each row shows the place name in bold and its region or full display name below. Click a row to select it.

A small line under the search box showing the live centre coordinates of the current view, formatted like 53.5440° N / 9.9870° E. It updates as you pan and zoom.

A clean light theme on a pure white background with dark grey roads. Best for bright, editorial posters.

A dark navy theme with light roads and a sky-blue pin. This is the default theme when you open a fresh map.

A deep blue, technical-drawing look with white roads and a warm yellow pin. Evokes an architect's blueprint.

A warm cream background with earthy brown roads and a clay-red pin. A soft, sunny Mediterranean feel.

A dark forest-green theme with pale green roads and a yellow pin. Good for parks and nature areas.

A near-black purple background with glowing cyan and magenta roads. A bold, synthwave night look.

An aged-paper cream with muted brown roads and a deep red pin. A classic antique-map feel.

A black background with gold roads and a gold pin. A luxurious, high-contrast night poster.

A soft blush-pink background with wine-red roads and a rose pin. A gentle, romantic palette.

A pale, airy theme with strong blue water and a coral pin. Suits coastal and harbour maps.

Sets the map's base fill color, behind water, parks and roads. Overrides the theme background until you press Auto.

Sets the color of the strongest road class (motorways). The other road classes (primary, secondary, minor, path) are automatically derived by fading this color toward the background.

Sets the fill and line color for seas, lakes, rivers and streams. Overrides the theme water color until reset.

Sets the fill color for parks, woods and other green areas. Overrides the theme green until reset.

The small Auto button on each color row removes your override and returns that color to the theme's value. Its tooltip reads Back to the theme color.

Tip. Switching to a different theme clears all four overrides at once.

Paints the streets with a curated gradient instead of the theme road colors - ten presets including gold, copper and chrome foils. Gold streets on black is the classic. Auto returns to the theme colors.

How the gradient maps onto the streets: By road class gives main arteries the hot gloss band while alleys sink into the rim (instant depth), Across the poster runs one gradient over the whole map.

A neon halo under the main roads - the city reads as lights at night. Strongest on the dark themes; the route line glows along.

A slider that sets how much area the map covers, from a tight neighbourhood to a whole region. The readout shows the current radius in metres or kilometres. It stays in sync with wheel zoom on the preview.

Tip. Zooming also changes how much road and building detail is loaded.

A slider that scales the thickness of every road, rail and water line at once. Lower values give a fine, delicate map; higher values give a bold, graphic one.

A row of ten icon buttons that crop the map into a frame shape. Choose Square for no crop, or one of the masks: Rounded, Circle, Pentagon, Heart, Hexagon, Diamond, Triangle, Arch or Star. Shaped maps outline their shape in the road color or foil - the heart gets its heart line, matching Star Map Posters.

The default shape: no crop, the map fills its full square frame. Internally the none mask.

Tip. Pick this to keep straight edges and full corners.

Crops the map to a rounded-corner square (a squircle). A softer frame that still fills most of the area.

Crops the map into a full circle centred in the frame. A classic round map medallion.

Crops the map into a heart outline. Good for sentimental places like a hometown or wedding location.

Crops the map into a point-up hexagon. A modern, badge-like frame.

Toggles the drawing of seas, lakes, rivers and streams. Turn it off for a land-only map.

Toggles the fill of parks, woods and other green areas (and sand or beach fills). Turn it off for a more abstract, monochrome map.

Toggles rail lines, drawn with cross-tie dashes so they read instantly as railways.

Toggles the faintest road class (footpaths and tracks). Turn it off to reduce clutter and keep only real roads.

Toggles building footprints. These load only when you are zoomed in close; when unavailable the checkbox is disabled and its label changes to Buildings (zoom in closer).

Tip. Zoom in until the label reads plain Buildings to enable it.

Adds a new marker pin at the current map centre, named Pin 1, Pin 2 and so on. Drag it on the preview to place it exactly. If no place is chosen yet, it warns Search for a place first.

A helper line under the Add pin button reminding you that new pins appear in the centre and are positioned by dragging on the preview.

A text field on each pin row that sets the caption drawn next to that pin on the map. Leave it empty for a pin with no text. Placeholder text is Label.

Tip. Labels render in the theme text color with a background-colored outline for legibility.

The x button on a pin row deletes that pin and its label. Its tooltip reads Remove pin.

A dropdown that draws a dashed connecting line between your pins in order. Choose None for no line, Straight line for direct segments, or Curved line for a gentle arc between points.

Tip. A route needs at least two pins to appear.

When a route is drawn, this checkbox adds a pill showing the total great-circle distance along the route, placed at the midpoint of the longest segment.

Chooses where the caption sits. Classic poster places a centred title, divider and subtitle below the map; On the map overlays the title in the map's lower corner; No text inserts the map alone.

The main heading text, drawn in uppercase Montserrat bold. It prefills with the selected place name and stops auto-updating once you edit it by hand.

Tip. Insert variables like {{post.title}} with the variable button next to the field.

A secondary line under the title (for example the region or country), drawn in uppercase Inter. It prefills with the place region and stops auto-updating once edited.

A small picker next to the title and subtitle fields that inserts dynamic tokens such as {{post.title}}. Because the caption becomes normal text layers, these resolve per post when the poster runs in a dynamic template.

An explanatory line reading Variables like {{post.title}} resolve per post when the poster runs in a dynamic template. It appears under the text fields when the variable picker is available.

A slider that scales the whole caption (title, subtitle and coordinates) up or down together. Use it to balance the text against the map.

A checkbox that adds a coordinates line to the caption, showing the map centre like 53.5440° N / 9.9870° E. It appears as its own text layer named Coordinates.

In the Classic poster layout, a short horizontal rule is inserted between the title and subtitle as a shape layer named Divider. It is drawn in the theme text color.

A credit line at the bottom of the side panel naming the data source and licence. OpenStreetMap requires this attribution when you use its data.

A hint on the left of the footer reminding you how to navigate the preview: drag to pan, scroll to zoom.

Closes the studio without inserting or changing anything, the same as the x button or Escape.

Bakes the current map to an image and inserts it into your document as a group named after the place, containing the map layer plus separate title, subtitle, divider, coordinates and attribution layers. Stays disabled until map data has loaded.

Tip. The map layer stores its settings so you can reopen it later with Edit Map Posters.

Shown instead of Insert Map when you opened the studio by editing an existing map layer. It re-bakes the map and updates that layer in place, keeping its position and any surrounding layers.

Heading over the place search field and the live coordinates readout. Everything under it sets which spot on earth the map is centred on.

Heading over the grid of ten preset color themes (Minimal through Ocean). Pick a tile to recolor the whole map at once.

Heading over the four color override rows: Background, Roads, Water and Parks. Use these to tweak a theme's individual colors.

Heading over the map-shaping controls: Zoom, Line weight, Shape and the feature toggles (Water, Parks and woods, Railways, Footpaths, Buildings).

Heading over Add pin, the list of added pins, the Route selector and the Show total distance toggle.

Heading over the poster text controls: Title, Subtitle, the variable button, Text size, Layout and the Coordinates line toggle.

Tip. This whole section is hidden when you reopen an existing map, because editing only re-bakes the map image, not the text layers.

No line is drawn between pins. Each pin just marks its own spot.

Joins the pins in order with straight segments, like a direct point-to-point path.

Joins the pins in order with a gentle curved arc instead of straight segments, for a softer travel-route look.

Tip. Pairs well with Show total distance for a trip poster.

Puts the map in the upper part of the canvas with a centred title, a short divider line, the subtitle and the coordinates stacked underneath. This is the traditional map-poster look.

Places the title and coordinates directly over the map, with no separate text band below it, so the map fills more of the canvas. A 3x3 grid appears with this layout and puts the block wherever you want it; the default is the lower left.

Inserts only the map image with no title, subtitle or coordinates text layers. Use it when you want to add your own captions.

Closes the Map Posters dialog without inserting anything, the same as pressing Cancel.

Clicking the dimmed area around the dialog closes Map Posters without inserting. Clicks inside the dialog are ignored.

Pressing Enter while typing in the place search selects the first matching result, so you can search and pick without using the mouse.

When you are zoomed too far out for building footprints, the Buildings toggle is greyed out and its label changes to this. Zoom in until it re-enables to draw buildings.

Tooltip on the Auto reset button beside each color row. Clicking Auto drops your custom color for that element and restores the current theme's own value.

Name of the inserted text layer that holds the latitude and longitude line. It appears in the Layers panel after Insert Map when the Coordinates line toggle is on.

Tip. This is the layer name, distinct from the Coordinates line toggle and the live coordinates readout in the sidebar.

Inserted map layers are grouped under a group named Map: <place>, and the baked map image inside it is named Map <place>. Rename or reorganise them like any other layer.

Each new pin is pre-named Pin 1, Pin 2 and so on. Type in the pin's label field to give it a real name.

Because the inserted map layer stores its settings, selecting it later and choosing Edit Map Posters reopens the studio on the exact same place, theme, pins and zoom. The primary button then reads Update Map and re-bakes the image in place.

Shown when a location has more map data than can be drawn cleanly. Some minor detail is dropped, but the map still renders.

Shown when the zoomed-out area is too big for full detail. Map Posters automatically reloads that area at a lower detail level.

The shared OpenStreetMap data service is rate-limited in waves. When it is busy, Map Posters waits and retries automatically up to two times before reporting a failure.

Shown if the host editor is too old to provide the server-side geo proxy that Map Posters relies on. Update WunderPaint to use the extension.