In the second competition, all you have to do is cast your vote. The search is on for the Course of the Year 2025. Choose your Top 5 List for the best courses of 2025 and win with a little luck a 3-year OCAD Orienteering Single User license. Voting is open until Thurday December 18th.
We are delighted to announce another milestone in the development of OCAD.
The OCAD App is now available as a beta version!
With the OCAD App, we are taking map making on mobile devices to a new level. While the previous OCAD Sketch App only allowed you to sketch, the new OCAD App enables you to edit the entire map. There are also many improvements to make mapping in the field even more ergonomic and efficient.
With the latest OCAD Update, an option has been added to the Colors dialog to define Base Colors from which the values of the other colors are derived. This makes color management easier for people who print maps.
How base colors work
The Base Colors dialog can be opened in the Colors dialog.
There, base colors can be defined and edited. Base colors sets can also be loaded and/or exported.
Back in the Colors dialog, colors can be assigned to a base color or removed again. With the Assign colors to base colors function, OCAD attempts to assign colors automatically. In addition to the base color, a percentage value for the base color must also be defined (more on the end of the article).
If colors need to be adjusted based on a test printout, only the base colors need to be adjusted, and the colors assigned to that base color will change accordingly.
Why was this feature developed?
Depending on the printer and paper used, the CMYK values in the Colors dialog may need to be adjusted to achieve good print quality. This can be tedious, as there are over 50 colors defined in the standard symbol set for orienteering maps.
By defining base colors, only a few base colors need to be defined. When changing the CMYK values of the base colors, the derived colors change too.
In addition, you can export the base colors suitable for your printer as a new set. Next time you receive a map for printing, you can reload this color set.
Do all colors have to be assigned to a base color?
No, not all colors have to be assigned to a base color. For example, colors for logos can still be set using CMYK values.
Also, not all colors in the symbols sets are not assigned to a base color, as they would not meet the exact colors values defined by IOF.
Should I work with base colors or not?
For new maps, it is recommended to work with base colors. They are already correctly defined and assigned for the different colors in the current symbol sets.
For existing maps, some effort is required to add all colors correctly to the base colors. Also, it is still possible to adjust the color table e.g. by using the Color Swatch function.
It is up to you to decide whether or not to assign colors to the base color for old maps. Experience has shown that many older maps have an outdated symbol set and colors. Before you start to assign colors to base colors, it might be a good idea to use the Symbol Set Conversion function. This will update your map to the current symbol set defined by the IOF. Also, it will directly replace your color table. True to the motto: If you’re going to do it, do it right.
Best practices for printing orienteering maps
The colors on the screen can differ a lot from the colors on the printed map. It is not only the color settings in OCAD that are decisive, but also the paper used, the printer, the printer settings and the printer driver.
Therefore, it is important to always make a test print, check the printout using a reference sheet, and adjust the colors in OCAD (or adjust printer settings) if the result is unsatisfactory. Check also the Document IOF Printing and Colour Definitions A4 Revision 4 on the IOF Webite for more information.
Experience shows that dark colors are usually not a problem, but that the definition of light colors is crucial (e.g., Green 60%, Green 30%, Yellow 50%, etc.). It’s therefore good practice to first adjust the color values of the base colors. For fine tuning, the percentage values of the individual colors can be adjusted (e.g., make Green 30% a bit darker and set it to 38%).
We repeatedly receive support requests from users who want to reactivate OCAD on a new computer.
OCAD Single User licenses can be activated independently on a new device, even if the old device is no longer accessible!
Simply install OCAD on the new device and start the activation process. During the activation process you will see on which devices the Single User license has been activated and you will have the option to deactivate the license on another device.
You can then complete the activation process yourself.
Reminder: Transfer of OCAD Team licenses
For OCAD Team licenses, we recommend to set the option Deactivate this license automatically when closing OCAD in the License Manager tool in the Help menu,
If a Team license got stuck somewhere (e.g. hard disk failure, license transfer has not worked correctly or due to an inactive user), use the Transfer form on our website. We will reset the license so it can be installed and activated again on a new device.
Sometimes you may want to hide certain parts of the map to make more room for logos, control descriptions, or layout elements.
What options are available in OCAD?
#01 Option: White background Symbol In course setting projects, you can use the White background symbol (760.000) as a quick solution. Select the White background symbol in the symbol box and cover parts of the map with white color. However, make sure that you do not cover any course objects (controls, control numbers, connection lines, …), as the withe color that is used in symbol 760 will cover course objects.
#02 Option: Layout Objects Open the Layout menu (Layout>Edit Layout Objects) and add a new white area object. Make sure the white area objects are at the bottom of the object list, if there are other layout elements in the list to not cover them.
#03 Option: Map Objects Define a new white color (Map>Colors>Add) and move it to desired position in the color table (e.g. to the very top). In a second step, create a new area symbol (Symbol>New>Area Symbol) where you use the newly created color as Fill color.
#04 Option: Cut Away Parts of the Map Alternatively, you can cut away parts of the map instead of just cover them. If so, make sure you are working with a copy and not the original map.
Recommendations
It is generally up to you whether you use the options listed above directly in the map file, in the course setting file, or in a layout file.
