You can now create posters, flyers, and square mini cards for your tours directly in MapMaker. Most of the details are pulled in from your tour’s About page, so it only takes a couple of minutes to generate a PDF that’s ready to send to your printer.
How it works
Open your tour in My Library, click Edit tour, go to Distribution and select the Printed Materials tab. You’ll see three formats: an A4 poster, a two-sided DL flyer, and a new square mini card.
The instructions, including image sizes and character counts, are outlined in the Distribution tab, so you can just follow along as you create the printed materials. Read more about the process in our documentation.
To create the flyer
We’ll use the flyer as an example, since it has a front and a back. Click Create Flyer and you’ll see the editor on the left and a live preview on the right. There are just three things you need to do.
- Shorten your title
The flyer title has a 45-character limit. Keep it recognisable as the same tour and, if you can, include “self-guided” or “audio tour” so people know what they’re getting. For example, “Ancient to Modern Modena: Food, Ferrari, and Fantastic Architecture” becomes “Modena Through Time: Self-Guided Audio Tour”.
- Add three top attractions
Scroll to the bottom of the page, start typing in the Tour Attractions boxes and you’ll see suggestions from your list of Major Landmarks. Choose three recognisable ones, up to 25 characters each. You’ll need all three before you can download the front.
Tour Attractions with a suggestion appearing
Click Update to refresh the preview and Enlarge Preview to check the updated flyer. Once you’re happy with the front of the flyer click Download PDF (Front) and Next: Back of Flyer.
The preview of the updated flyer
- Trim your description
The back uses your tour description for the About the Tour section, which has a 500-character limit. Edit it down to a short paragraph about your tour’s main themes, and make sure it ends in a complete sentence. This is also a good place to mention that it’s a self-guided audio tour, if that isn’t in your title. Everything else on the back, including instructions for getting the tour, is added automatically.
Back of flyer editor with section to edit About the tour and live preview
Click Update, then Download PDF (Back), so you have both sides ready for your printer.
You can also customise the cover image, duration, distance, price and starting point, and the guidance next to each field explains the limits. Or you can keep them as they are, since you already set these up as part of the final touches when you published your tour. Your publisher name and picture come from your publisher profile, so update them there and then regenerate the flyer.
Changes here only apply to the printed item, so you’re not making any changes to your tour in the apps or the VoiceMap site. Always ask your printer for a proof before placing a bulk order.
The poster
The poster is a single A4 page and works the same way, but the title can be a little longer, with a 55-character limit.
New: the square mini card
The double-sided card is small enough to leave in a stack at a reception desk or shop counter, hand to someone you’ve been chatting to, or slip in with a receipt. The front shows your cover image, title, name, a one-line description, duration and distance. The back has a QR code that links straight to your tour.
Find out more
For more on using printed materials, including tips on where to put your posters and flyers, have a look at Use print media in our documentation. If you’d like to add QR codes to your own designs, Using QR codes for tours and individual locations explains the different types and when to use each one.
If you have any questions or suggestions, please share them below