I think this is the right place to post this. I have a large map that I want to put a hex grid on but I have no idea how. Any help would be useful, because I have no idea what I'm doing and the grid would make life so much easier.

What format is the map in? MSword, pdf, jpg? If it is just a physical copy: what size?

It's a jpg.

Hm, not sure what your experience in image manipulation is.

I'm dabbling, and here's what I think you need to do.

First, size the jpg in the right way. Figure out how many pixels are representing 5 feet. That number will be the DPI you need to scale the image at.

Then you add a grid overlay with a distance between the lines also equaling the number of pixels that represent 5 feet.

I don't own any professional imaging software, but you can achieve all that with freeware. I'd use Irfanview to scale the DPI, and GIMP to layer a grid over it.

It will be tedious to create the grid, as you would have to draw a lot of lines, but I don't know of a better way.

Maybe a more knowledgeable person could chime in?

Edit: I guess you could draw squares instead of lines, that would make it a little easier to create a grid

Quote from account256 >>

Hm, not sure what your experience in image manipulation is.

I'm dabbling, and here's what I think you need to do.

First, size the jpg in the right way. Figure out how many pixels are representing 5 feet. That number will be the DPI you need to scale the image at.

Then you add a grid overlay with a distance between the lines also equaling the number of pixels that represent 5 feet.

I don't own any professional imaging software, but you can achieve all that with freeware. I'd use Irfanview to scale the DPI, and GIMP to layer a grid over it.

It will be tedious to create the grid, as you would have to draw a lot of lines, but I don't know of a better way.

Maybe a more knowledgeable person could chime in?

 

Edit: I guess you could draw squares instead of lines, that would make it a little easier to create a grid

 ...and when I say GIMP, I actually meant Inkscape ^^'

I'm old school; … think dinosaur.  Can you print a hex grid on clear media?  Then I would tape the clear hex grid onto the map I made and run it through a scanner that creates an Adobe file.  Many copiers today have that capability.  Good luck.

Thanks for the advice, I might use it in the future for my hand-drawn maps. I did, however, figure out a solution thanks to a person who's not as bad at computers as I am. 

Actually, you can cheat. 

A hex grid's movement characteristics can be topologically simulated by putting in a regular square grid but offsetting every other column's horizontal cell borders by 50%.  (There was a really cheesy space game from the 70's that did this with their star map.)

If you want to be artistic about it, fuzz the lines a bit or make them squigly. Topologically you will have the desired effect with half the work.

Another idea is to not put in the borders but put dots in the cell centers and, again, offset every other row by 50%