Planiglobe offers the option to download an editable map in Adobe^® Illustrator^® 7 compatible format (AI). If you know about PostScript^® images or have read the page about the PostScript^® maps here, you already know about the superior print quality, scalability and that you can select individual objects in a PostScript image to edit colour or other properties.

The AI format is very similar to this respect, but goes beyond. It is even better suited if you want to customize your map. Why? With the AI format the map themes or layers are stored as layers in the file as well. The country polygons are in a separate layer as the country borders, the rivers, the provincial borders and so forth. There are four individual layers for the cities (sorted by population size classes). This is quite handy for editing the image. You could for instance go to the country polygon layer, select all objects and set their colour in one go. Or you simply dim a cities layer which you do not want to appear in the image. Go to the "big cities" layer and change the labels to another font family, font size or colour.

While the Adobe^® Illustrator^® format is very popular among graphic artists and designers it is also beneficial for the rest of us. There are several applications and computer programs able to open or import this format retaining the layer structure and keeping countries, rivers, cities and labels as individual objects waiting for you to improve their looks.

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