Question:
I found a good map for my project, but it's color and I need black and white? How do I change it?
Answer:
You can use Adobe Illustrator to convert all the map elements into black lines and white fills. The map features are comprised of two types of elements: lines and polygons. Lines are used for map features such as rivers, borders, lat/long grids or roads. Polygons (or objects) are used for map features such as lakes, political area shapes (like states or countries) or an ocean background. Each feature is on a separate layer. You can select all the contents of a layer and then alter the selection based on whether it is made of lines or polygons.
To Select the Contents of a Layer:
Option-Click (Mac) or Alt-Click (Windows) on the name in the Layers Palette.
All artwork on that layer will be selected and you can make a change to the attributes of all those elements at one time.
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To Change Lines:
With the lines selected, go to the Color Palette. Bring the Stroke Box to the foreground and select black from the color picker.
All lines on that layer will be assigned a black stroke.
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To Change Polygons:
With the polygons selected, go to the Color Palette. Bring the Fill Box to the foreground and then select white from the color picker. Some polygons may not have a stroke. If there is no stroke, leave it unspecified. If there is a stroke you can change it to black.
Conversely, if you want to create a "silhouette" look, you can fill all the polygons black to make a solid form.
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Text only has a fill, so select the text and give it a black fill.
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