Georeferenced PDF help?

[dmkaplan2000]

Hi, I am really new to open orienteering mapper and just trying to get started, though I am quite familiar with general GIS. Forgive me if I ask silly questions...

I want to create my first vikazimut (https://vikazim.fr/vikazimut/) orienteering course. Someone gave me a geospatial PDF orienteering map of the area for the course and I have been watching the set of videos made by EPS Nancy-Metz (e.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gruu1y6phKc) on how to georeference a map and then draw the course trajectory using purple pen. I also have a GPX file with a set of waypoints I can use to georeference the map. My first question is real simple: do I even need open orienteering mapper if I already have a geospatial PDF? My impression is no, that OOM is for making the geospatial PDF in the first place, but I want to make sure.

Second, when I open the geospatial PDF as a template in OOM, I see nothing. The screen is just blank white. Is this what is supposed to happen? I can convert the PDF to a PNG image and then open that in OOM, but then I loose all the geospatial information. I also tried exporting the PDF as a geoTIFF and then importing that as a template into OOM, but that also was just blank.

Finally, I am wondering if open orienteering mapper can also do the job of purple pen (i.e., create the trace of the course) or do I still need purple pen for that?

Thanks!

[dl3sdo]

Hello @dmkaplan2000,

let me try to answer two of your questions.
I just tried to open a geospatial PDF as a template in OOM and it worked for me (I created the geospatial PDF with QGIS, using an OpenStreetMap excerpt and a simple print layout with north arrow and map scale).

OOM does not support course setting. There is only the special line symbol 799 which allows to create a very simple course (no line or circle gaps, no control description).

GeospatialPDFAndSimpleCourse.mp4

[dmkaplan2000]

Perhaps it is because I am running OOM on ubuntu Linux 24.04? In the video below, I first open the PDF using a PDF viewer (evince) just to show that it is indeed a valid PDF and then I open it as a template in OOM and you will see that the screen is indeed blank.

Screencast.from.2026-01-19.15-19-40.mp4

[dmkaplan2000]

Also, perhaps you can share the geospatial PDF that you created so that I can try it on my installation of OOM? That way I can at least eliminate the possibility that it is my particular file that has the problem (I have tried using a non-geospatial PDF as a template and that seems to work, but all the different geospatial PDFs I have tried have not worked).

[dl3sdo]

I tried it with Ubuntu 20.04 and it still works.
Here is the file:
Layout 1.pdf

[dmkaplan2000]

I confirm that I can open your PDF file in OOM and it looks fine, so it has to be something specific about my PDF that is the problem. My PDF was apparently generated by OCAD, so one would think it should work. Normally, I would be happy to share it with you, but I don't think I have permission to post it online. Is there a private way I could communicate it to you?

Using your PDF, I have another question that perhaps you can answer. I can open your PDF as a template in OOM and I can then save the result as a .omap, but when I open that in Purple Pen, nothing appears. Is this because the PDF is a template and not the actual map? My basic objective is to turn the geospatial PDF into some format that I can open with Purple Pen with which it will recognize the geographic coordinates so that I can make the KMZ and XML files that will work with vikazimut. If I open the PDF directly in PP, I can see the map, but it seems to loose the geographic coordinates. What is the simplest way to get a geospatial PDF into purple pen with the geospatial information?

[pkturner]

I can open your PDF as a template in OOM and I can then save the result as a .omap, but when I open that in Purple Pen, nothing appears. Is this because the PDF is a template and not the actual map?

Yes. A .omap keeps track of a template as a guide in drawing the actual map. The map is composed using point symbols, line/curve symbols, or area symbols that you can position using Mapper's drawing tools. Some special templates such as .omap, OCAD, or OSM maps can be imported and become part of your map.

The rest of your question is about Purple Pen so perhaps you should ask somewhere else.

[dl3sdo]

Hello @dmkaplan2000,
you can send me your PDF (mapper AT dl3sdo.de).
I just created a .pdf with OCAD 12 and could open it as template in Mapper, although without georeferencing (possibly not added to the .pdf).
Purple Pen can open .pdf files, so the question is whether you would need Mapper for your usecase.

[dmkaplan2000]

You can check if your PDF file is a geospatial PDF using the gdalinfo tool (in Linux, though I imagine a Windows install of GDAL will also come with the tool).

[dmkaplan2000]

I sent you the PDF via email. Thanks for offering to give it a look.

I definitely need mapper I think for part of the process. For vikazimut, I need a KMZ file with the georeferenced map and an IOF XML file with the coordinates for the control points. As far as I can tell Purple Pen doesn't produce a KMZ file and all the tutorials say to use OOM, so for that part I need OOM as far as I can tell. But I also need Purple Pen to produce the IOF XML file and that will only be correct (i.e., include the geographic coordinates of each point) if the map input to PP is appropriately georeferenced. PP just rasterizes PDF files I think using some sort of google tool, so it looses the geographic information from geospatial PDFs, so I need a georeferenced .omap as input to PP. In brief, unless I am missing something, I need both tools to work together.

For the time being, the only solution I have found is to rasterize my PDF in Gimp and then regeoreference it in OOM (using both the info returned by gdalinfo on the original PDF file and some georeference points I created in visorando.com), save as .omap, open in PP, add my control points, generate a map image in PP, reopen that in OOM and regeoreference that image and then save to KMZ with the control points and descriptions on the map. This works, but it really seems like there has to be a simpler way given that the original PDF was already georeferenced. I imagine all this regeoreferencing also introduces error in the result.

[dl3sdo]

This is how I could open it (Ubuntu Debug build & Windows 0.96 release):

1. create empty map
2. select map CRS (EPSG 4326 is the EPSG of the PDF):
3. open PDF as template (Georeferenced (PDF))
4. CRS selection: either 'From template file' or 'Same as map'
5. Now click on 'Show whole map' button

Complete Map Georeferencing (after having imported OpenStreetMap data first):

[dmkaplan2000]

Thanks, this was very helpful. One thing I find strange with this PDF is that indeed it says the coordinate system is 4326, but when you open the PDF it displays in UTM. In the output of gdalinfo, there is something about a GeoTransform. I presume this tells it how to convert from lon,lat to UTM.

In any case, following your instructions, I can indeed see the PDF map in OOM (after opening the PDF, I changed map coordinates to UTM to see it correctly). The one hiccup is that when I save as .omap and then try to open it in Purple Pen, the page is blank, presumably because purple pen only understands raster images and not the PDF in the .omap. The solution I have found is to first follow your instructions and then add a second template that is a PNG image of the original PDF which will be placed in the right location if the PDF and the image dimensions agree. I can then delete the PDF template and the PNG image will remain with the correct georeferencing, save to .omap and open with purple pen. I did have to add some hidden OOM points to the four corners of the map so that purple pen would center the map on the image, but I can see the imagev in purple pen, add control points and export to XML. Is there a way in OOM to explicitly tell it to set the map dimensions from the dimensions of one of the templates (or is this even a thing; perhaps it is a purple pen problem in that it ignores raster images when determining map scale)?

In any case, this discussion was very helpful and I appreciate the assistance.