Frequently Asked Questions

We regularly receive support requests from our users, which we not only try to answer, but also take as an opportunity to update our OCAD Wiki or publish blog posts.

Please find more FAQ on ourOCAD website.

Q: What is a good way to print orienteering maps?
A: Visit the OCAD Wiki page Course Setting Printing which provides an overview of how orienteering courses can be printed. See also the sildes from Swiss Mapping Coference on the subject of printing quality (German only).

Q: I have inserted a logo as a background image, but now my map appears pixelated in the PDF export. Why is that?
A: You have loaded the logo as a background map, which will rasterize the entire map when exporting a PDF file. Instead, you should link or embed the logo in the Layout menu. See this OCAD Wiki page for more information.

Q: Can I activate OCAD also on my Windows tablet?
A: Single User licenses can be activated automatically on 1 device. To allow the use on several own devices at the same time (desktop, notebook, field tablet) further activations for own devices can be granted by OCAD on request. Please contact support@ocad.com in this case.

OCAD Team licenses can only be activated on one device at the same time.

Q: When I have two controls that interfere (#3 & #4), how can I cut the circles in a way that it only affects one course and not all courses?
A: You cannot cut a control circle only for a specific course. You would need to export Course Maps and cut the circles there.

Q: Is there any feature to export a list of unspecified symbols (layer names) in an OCAD file? The layers are an input from a DXF file.
A: When you import DXF files, all objects are initially converted to Unsymbolized Objects.

First option:
- Go to Convert Imported Layers to Symbols in the Map menu
- Click on Add All and then save the CRT file

Second option:
- Go to menu Map Information in the Map menu
- Choose the tab Imported Layers
- Click on Report

See also our blog post how to assign unsymbolized objects to OCAD symbols.

Q: I'm course setter for a competition and got the map as PDF document. When I try to load it as background, I get an error message. Why?
A: OCAD can not open a vector PDF as background map in a Course Setting file directly. You first need to install Ghostscript, which converts the PDF to a raster image (JPG) and then loads the raster image as background map. In such a case, it would be better if the map maker or map publisher directly sends the map as PNG file, which gives better results than the JPG file.

However, it' still best to work with the OCAD file. To protect an .ocd file, map makers or map publishers can also send it as encrypted file (.eocd) to the course setter.

Q: Our course setting file has become larger with each revision, although the information content has not changed significantly. In the end we were at an unwieldy 25 MB
A: Choose the command Optimize and Repair to optimize (reduce) the size of the map file or course setting file. This function reduces the size of your file down to 0.5 MB.

Q: I have a map with Lidar. When I removed the Lidar curves to send the file to the club, the curves change to thin red lines.
A: As you only deleted the symbols for the Lidar curves and not the objects itself, they had become so-called objects without symbol. Go to menu Select > Selects Object by Symbol >Select Objects with unknown symbol to delete these objects. To delete all objects of a symbol, right-click the symbol in the symbol box and choose Select Objects by Symbol and delete the selected objects.

Run the Optimize and Repair command at the end to reduce the file size.