🗺️ Save, project, export

You've drawn your map: now you need to keep it safe (save it to your account), send it to the players (project it onto the second screen or to the online Table), and — if you need to — take it away as an image for another VTT. This guide walks through every button in the top bar step by step: Save, Export PNG, Player view and Project, plus the single most important point: the walls the map saves are what the Table's Vision relies on, and old maps without walls have to be reopened and re-saved. All of this is free (no credits): the only paid thing in the Cartographer is the Stamp Studio when it generates images with AI.

Where the controls are

The buttons that matter are in the Cartographer's top bar, on the right, one after another:

• N×M (for example 24×16) — this is the Sheet format: clicking it reopens the setup screen and the list of your maps.
• Save (with the floppy-disk icon) — saves the map to your account. When there are changes to save the button reads Save; when everything is saved it reads Saved.
• Export PNG — downloads the map as a high-resolution image.
• 🖥 Player view — opens the second screen (the window your players see).
• 📽 Project — sends the map you're looking at right now to the Player view.

Next to the Save button a dot • may appear with the label "Unsaved changes (autosaved)": it means there are changes not yet saved by hand, but the system has put them out of harm's way with autosave anyway (explained further below).

Creating or reopening the sheet (the start screen)

Before you can save you need a sheet. The "Set up the work sheet" screen appears on opening, and you return to it whenever you press the N×M button up top. From here you do two things: create a new map (on the left) or reopen a saved one (on the right, under "Your maps").

To create a new map:

1. Choose the sheet size. You have three routes:

• Paper presets: the A4 and A3 buttons in the Landscape and Portrait variants.
• 4K TV preset: type the television's inches into the 4K TV (inches) field and press 1-inch grid. The Cartographer computes a grid with cells that are 1 real inch at full screen on that TV: this way a physical miniature set on top matches a real cell. Next to it you see the computed size (for example 37 × 21).
• Free size: type the values yourself in Columns and Rows. Below you always see the columns × rows preview.

1. Give the map a name in the Map name field (it's the name you'll find it under everywhere, including at the Table).
2. Press Start drawing.

To reopen a saved map: in the "Your maps" column click its thumbnail. If you haven't saved anything yet you'll read "No saved maps.". Each row shows the thumbnail, the title, the date and an ✕ to delete it (it asks for confirmation: "Delete this saved map?"). A dot • next to the title means that map has autosaved changes not yet confirmed with Save.

Saving the map

Saving sends the map to your account: you find it again from any computer and it becomes available in the online Table.

1. Press the Save button up top.
2. The button briefly turns to … while it works, then becomes Saved.
3. From that moment the map appears (or updates) in the "Your maps" list.

What gets saved, besides the drawing:

• The map name and the format (Columns × Rows).
• A thumbnail (the small preview you see in the list).
• A high-resolution projection image (around 4K, long side roughly 2600 px): it's the image the Table shows to players. Careful: this high-resolution image is generated ONLY when you save by hand with the Save button, not by autosave.
• The map's walls (the perimeter of rooms and shapes): they are the geometry the Table's Vision needs. I cover this in detail below because it's the point that trips people up most.

Autosave

While you work, the Cartographer saves on its own every 10 minutes, but only if there are changes and you're working on a real map (not in the blueprint bench). This autosave is a safety net: it protects the drawing and the walls, which is why the • "Unsaved changes (autosaved)" dot appears next to Save.

Important point: autosave does NOT regenerate the ~4K projection image. So, when you've finished a work session and want players to see the updated version at the Table, press Save by hand: only then is the high-resolution image recomputed.

The map at the online Table

Once saved, the map is ready for the online Table. At the Table:

1. Open the maps dropdown (the drop-down menu) and pick your map from the list. Each entry shows the title and the format, for example Crypt (24×16).
2. Two markers may appear next to the name:

• ⚠ = the map has no high-resolution projection image (usually because you never saved it by hand). The Table falls back to the small thumbnail, which is blurry.
• 👁 = the map has walls saved, so Vision is available.

1. With the Table's Project button you send it to the players.

WALLS and Vision (read this carefully)

This is the concept that ruins the most maps if you don't know it. In the Cartographer, every time you draw a room or a shape, the border around it is a wall. Those walls, on save, are recorded together with the map and are the geometry the Table uses for Vision (the fog that opens only where the characters actually see: walls block the line of sight).

Practical consequence:

• At the Table, the Vision switch works only if the map has saved walls (the 👁 mark in the dropdown) and fog is active. If the map has no walls, the Vision button stays disabled.
• Old maps, made before walls were saved, have no walls inside them. For those, Vision shows as off and there's no way to turn it on from the Table.

How to fix an old map:

1. Open the Cartographer and reopen that map (from the "Your maps" list).
2. Re-save it by pressing Save.
3. At that moment the Cartographer recomputes the walls from the perimeter of the rooms/shapes and records them with the map (and also regenerates the ~4K image).
4. Go back to the Table: now the map has the 👁 and Vision turns on.

In short: if a map at the Table has Vision greyed out/disabled, the cure is always the same — reopen and re-save in the editor.

Exporting to PNG (for other VTTs)

If you want to use the map outside GameMasterBuddy — on Roll20, Foundry, in print, or just to archive it — use Export PNG.

1. Press Export PNG up top.
2. The Cartographer re-bakes the whole map at high resolution: since walls, rooms and brush strokes are vector data (not fixed pixels), it redraws them at up to 4× the resolution, reaching about 256 px per cell. In print, with 1 cell = 1 inch, that's about 256 DPI: print quality.
3. The downloaded file is named battlemap.png.

Useful details:

• The export contains only the sheet area (the format you chose), not the dark borders around the canvas.
• The image's maximum side is 8192 px: on very large maps the multiplier drops automatically so it doesn't overflow (the quality stays high anyway).
• Hidden rooms do not go into the export.
• Unlike saving, the export doesn't touch your account: it's just a file you download.

Player view and Project (second screen)

These are the two commands to show the map live at the table, keeping your control screen separate from the players' one.

🖥 Player view opens the window the players watch:

1. Press 🖥 Player view.
2. On Chrome/Edge, if you grant permission, the Cartographer tries to open it directly on the second screen (a TV or a connected monitor).
3. If the browser doesn't allow it, a normal window opens that you drag onto the right monitor and then set to full screen.

📽 Project sends the map you're looking at right now to that window:

1. Press 📽 Project.
2. The Cartographer captures the current sheet and shows it to the players as an image, fitted to their window.
3. The lights are not "baked" into the image: they travel separately and the Player view recomposes them live (flames, lightning, flicker animated for them too).
4. It's a manual send: if you move tokens or stamps, press Project again to update what they see.

A note on the difference: the Cartographer's Project captures the screen on the fly (a light image, ideal for updating quickly during play), whereas the ~4K high-resolution image is the one generated on Save and used by the Table. For a "serious" session with Vision and fog it's better to go through the Table (saved map); direct Project is handy for quickly showing whatever you've got in front of you.

Finishing touches: rulers, precision, 1-inch grid

Three aids that come in handy exactly when you're preparing a map to project or print:

• ▛ Rulers — turns the rulers on the canvas edges on/off. Next to it, the Ruler subdivisions dropdown chooses how fine the ticks are: Cells (one tick per cell) or 1/2, 1/3, 1/4… up to 1/10 of a cell, for precise measurements.
• ✛ Precision — projects from the cursor a crosshair and two 45° lines across the whole canvas: it's for aligning walls and objects exactly.
• 1-inch grid (in the setup screen) — as noted above, it computes a grid with cells of 1 real inch for a 4K TV of the diagonal you enter: it's the right way to play with physical miniatures set on the screen, because a cell on the glass really measures one inch.

In short (the recommended flow)

1. Set up the sheet (format + Map name) and draw, remembering that the border of rooms and shapes are the walls.
2. Press Save by hand when the map is ready: this gives you the thumbnail, the ~4K image and the walls saved to the account. (Autosave every 10 minutes is just a safety net and does not regenerate the 4K image.)
3. At the Table, pick the map from the dropdown: 👁 = has walls (Vision ok), ⚠ = missing the 4K image (re-save by hand).
4. Old map with Vision off? Reopen and re-save it in the Cartographer.
5. Need it outside GMB? Export PNG (up to 4×, battlemap.png).
6. At the table with the second screen: 🖥 Player view to open it, 📽 Project to send the map to it (press again after every move).