What is MapScaleTool?
MapScaleTool is a little tool designed for use with computer-based tabletop gaming tools such as MapTool to assist in resizing scanned RPG dungeon maps to correctly align with the grid inside the gaming application.
This tool takes the form of a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet because I lack the development talent to create an actual application for it. It was made in conjunction with Douglas “Kizan” Bowie because we got sick of playing games where the MapTool grid didn’t properly line up with the map image, causing all sorts of gameplay problems while moving characters (tokens) through dungeons.
Using directions from the MapTool 1.2 manual, we figured out a relatively simple way of adjusting the images and created this spreadsheet to do the math for us. It seemed like something that would be of use to other MapTool users, so I turned it into an Excel-based application of sorts.
Usage
The instructions for use are shown in the spreadsheet itself, so I won’t duplicate them here. Basically fill in the boxes with the appropriate numbers and resize the map image to the dimensions shown in the green box. The spreadsheet is currently “protected” — locked by a password. This is to make it seem more application-like by making only input boxes clickable and able to be modified. If you want to poke around and change things, the password to unprotect the sheet is “1234”. If you make any changes, please let me know so I can incorporate them into the main file here if it’s something that could be of use to others.
What You Need
In order to use MapScaleTool, you need an application that can open Microsoft Excel files, as well as an image editor that can be used to count the number of pixels in a selected area and resize/resample an image. For the spreadsheet, if you don’t have Microsoft Excel, LibreOffice works, or you can copy the file into OneDrive and use Microsoft’s free Excel Web App. For image editing, free software such as Paint.NET or GIMP work well if you don’t have something fancy like Adobe Photoshop.
Download
You can download the Excel file here. (27.5 KB)
Note on April 1, 2021: I discovered that at some point the XLS file had been replaced by an HTML file from the Internet Archive. I can only assume that at some point I needed to download the file from there and never noticed that what actually came down was an HTML file. I have no idea how long it’s been this way, but the file was just replaced today with the correct file.
You need a program that can open Microsoft Excel files. (See the “What You Need” section above for additional details.)
The most current version of MapScaleTool will always be linked here. If you link to this little project from another site, please link to this page, not to the Excel file itself.
Comments or Suggestions?
If you have any comments, suggestions, gripes, etc., please leave a comment below!
License
Revision History
1.0.1a - 2007-06-01
Fixed typos in the instructions.
1.0.1 - 2007-06-01
Added licensing information, modified instructions section, changed wording of some input boxes. Created this Web page.
1.0 - 2007-05-31
First release, not made public.