Save online maps for offline use

Visit the Gmapcatcher home page, where there are several versions of Gmapcatcher available for different operating systems. Click the one labelled Win Installer. If the File Download Security Warning dialogue box appears, click Save and then choose a location for the downloaded file. Firefox users should select Save File to save the download to Firefox's default download folder. Now locate and double-click the downloaded file to launch installation wizard. Stick to the default options and, once the installation is complete, the program will launch automatically in offline mode. It shows a world map in its main window, from Google Maps. 

To start browsing for more detailed maps the program needs to be online. Click to remove the tick from the Offline box. Type a place name or postcode into the field labelled ‘Enter location here'. Click OK to move to this location. Use the slider on the left of the window to zoom in or out of the map. The dropdown menu marked Map can be used to show the outline map, satellite images, or a combination of both.

The red circle shows the immediate centre of the selected location. Click and drag with the mouse anywhere on the map to move the image. The red highlighted circle moves with the map. Double-click anywhere on the map to zoom into that area. This will centre the map on the mouse pointer. To see contour lines and shading to indicate hills change the Map dropdown to Terrain. To begin downloading the current map, click the Download button.

The Gmapcatcher download dialogue box appears. This includes the chosen location expressed in latitude and longitude and the area of the map that will be downloaded. This is shown by width and height in kilometres. Change the figures here to set a larger or smaller area to download. Set the minimum and maximum zoom level here too. Click Download. Some online maps, like Google Maps, are bound by usage terms that prohibit the bulk downloading of data like this. If this is the case, a warning will show. Understand that continuing would break the terms of service.

If such a warning does appear click Cancel and consider changing the map supplier. To change the map provider, return to the main Gmapcatcher window and click the Tools button below Query and choose the Change Theme tab. In the resulting dialogue box, select the new map service from the dropdown menu. Cloudmade, Yahoo, Information Freeway, Google Map Maker and Virtual Earth permit bulk downloading, so select one of those. To keep different map providers separate, tick the box marked ‘Use a different folder per Map Service'. Click Save and close the Gmapcatcher Tools dialogue box. Click Download to download the map again.

Once downloaded, the maps are available in offline mode. Select the location from the location bar to move to any of the maps previously downloaded. To change the folder that stores the offline maps, click the Tools button and choose Settings. Under the Custom Maps Directory heading click the browse (‘...') button and navigate to the relevant folder. Click Save to confirm the change or choose Reset to default to set it back to its default location.