You do not have to create your maps in d20pro. In fact, most of the time you might find that it's necessary to use pre-made maps from modules or create them yourself using various software titles. Once you find them, importing them into d20pro is a fairly basic process.

Step 1: Get the Map

You can find free maps or make your own.

Finding Free Maps

For Specific Adventures

• WOTC, for example, has Art & Map galleries for many of their publications, like Expedition to Castle Ravenloft.
  
• Paizo also includes downloadable maps for some of their Dungeon Magazine adventures.
• Prester’s Maps and Chart Emporium is a site dedicated to sharing the work of Dungeon Crawl Classics fans. On this page you’ll find beautifully rendered battlemaps for use while playing DCC adventures. Most are created using the map-making software Dundjinni (see below).

For Non-Specific Maps

• Dundjinni's website hosts a forum where users of this incredible map-making program post their art and maps. By default any art or maps posted on Dundjinni's map forum are available for others to use, unless specified by the author. The maps on this forum are in a word: Amazing.
• WOTC has a Map-a-Week page with some good generic maps.
  
• Sometimes you might stumble upon amateurs or professionals who have made thier maps available to the public. One example is the Educated Gamer, where you can find maps of the original T1-4 modules, and other maps.
• If you own a module, you might want to scan the maps for personal use. Just remember to scan them using a fairly high resolution so that you will have good quality maps. This method is likely to involve a bit more post-work.

Creating Your Own Maps

• Hands down, one of the most powerful and user-friendly software titles out there for making maps is Dundjinni. For a reasonable price, you get access to a software that allows you to paint a map with floor textures, draw walls, and stamp objects - all quickly and effectively. You can buy art packs for more creative power, or mine the thousands of unbelievable posts on their forum of user art. Most of the art on the forums (textures, maps, objects) is available for download and immediate use in your map projects. You really need to see the maps created with it to believe it.
  
• Another good software is Campaign Cartographer 3. It has a steep learning curve (especially since it uses more of a CAD approach) but produces very nice maps.
• You could also use graphic programs like Photoshop, GIMPshop (free), or various paint programs like ArtRage (free) or Painter.

Once you obtain your map graphic file, you need to import it to d20pro, create a blank map, and insert the graphic onto the blank map, scaled correctly.

Importing Map Graphics into d20pro's Library

There is not currently an import command for map graphic files (jpg, png, etc). The Import button in the map library is for importingcomplete map files that have been previously exported from d20pro. To use a map graphic, you need to place your image into the Tile & Scale Library.

• Using your operating system's file browser (not d20pro), copy your map graphic file. This should be a common graphic file format, like bmp, gif, png, or jpg. Ideally, this should be a JPG file.
• Navigate to your d20pro folder. In Windows, this is usually c:\d20pro. From there, proceed to the \dm\res\FLR folder.
  
• Paste your map graphic into this folder, or a subfolder of this one.
  
• You may want to create many subfolders under d20pro\dm\res\FLR in order to keep your maps organized and running smoothly.
• Start up d20Pro and click on the Scale button. Browse to the location of the graphic file.
• Note: If you are already in the program, click on the Options button, then the Judge button in the Options pane. Finally, click on Update Resources. Then click Scale and navigate to the proper folder.

Create a Blank Map

Once you have the map in your image library (accessible from Tile or Scale), you can now insert it into a d20pro map. First, you need to create a blank map.

• Click on Map, then New
• Insert the dimensions of the new map in 5ft square increments. Thus a 40x80 ft map would be an 8x16 square grid.
• If your graphic has gridlines already, just cound the number of 5ft squares.
• If does not have gridlines, determine a size or dimension by estimating or looking at the resolution of the file. Hovering your mouse pointer over an image file in Windows will revewal the image dimensions. You are free to choose the overall scale. So if your image is 1024 x 768, you might round it to 10x7 or 10x8 or maybe 20x15.
• Enter other information such as the name or module and create the map.
• Find the newly created (and empty) map in your Map library, then click on the < arrow button to the left of the map name. It will open in your Map Region. Now you have a map with proper proportions open and ready for a graphic.

Insert the Graphic into the Map

• Click on the Scale button and browse to your map.
• Select your map and click on the FILL button.
• The map will stretch to fill the dimensions of the d20pro map area.
• Note that you can manually type in dimensions if you do not want the graphic to fill the entire map area.