Hex Cartographer

Bring Your Fantasy Worlds to Life

Hex Cartographer is a visual hex map editor for Obsidian. Create detailed fantasy world maps with colored hex tiles, hand-crafted SVG symbols, rivers, roads, borders, and text annotations — all stored as plain text in your vault.

Your finished maps can be printed or exported as high-resolution PNG/JPEG images — perfect for RPG game masters, fantasy authors, and worldbuilders.

Example Map

Symbols Library

Editor

Features

Hex Grid Editor

• Infinite scrollable hex grid canvas
• Paint hexes with custom colors and palettes
• Color eyedropper to pick colors from the map
• Fill tool for quick area painting
• Pattern stamp tool to apply repeating tile layouts

Symbols & Terrain

• 25+ hand-crafted SVG symbols across 4 groups: Extras, Vegetation, Mountains, Buildings
• Symbols inherit the active master color for full flexibility
• Right-click to switch between symbol variants

Rivers, Roads & Borders

• Draw rivers and roads by placing waypoints
• Adjustable line width and dash patterns
• Rivers taper naturally at dead ends
• Draw border regions with customizable styles
• Toggle border visibility on/off

Text Annotations

• Place text labels anywhere on the map
• Customize font size, color, bold, and italic
• Link text to other notes in your Obsidian vault

Export & Print

• Export maps as high-resolution PNG or JPEG
• Print directly from the three-dot menu
• On mobile, exports are saved next to the map file

Full Mobile Support

• Touch-optimized: tap to place, swipe to draw
• Two-finger pinch to zoom, two-finger drag to pan
• Long-press on tool buttons for variant selection

Installation

1. Open Obsidian Settings
2. Go to Community Plugins and disable Restricted Mode
3. Click Browse and search for Hex Cartographer
4. Click Install, then Enable

Manual Installation

1. Download main.js, styles.css, and manifest.json from the latest release
2. Create a folder hex-cartographer in your vault's .obsidian/plugins/ directory
3. Place the downloaded files inside
4. Restart Obsidian and enable the plugin

Getting Started

1. Right-click a folder in the file explorer and select Create new Hex Cartographer Map
2. Toggle Edit Mode to start drawing
3. Select a color from the palette and click hexes to paint terrain
4. Switch tool groups in the toolbar to place symbols, draw paths, or add text
5. Use Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y to undo and redo

Controls

Action	Desktop	Mobile
Paint / Place	Left-click	Tap
Erase	Right-click (hold + drag for multiple)	Eraser Icon
Erase all	Double right-click	Eraser Icon, then double tap
Zoom	Mouse wheel	Two-finger pinch
Pan	Middle mouse / Shift+Drag	Two-finger drag
Symbol variant	Right-click tool button	Long-press tool button
Palette color	Right-click palette slot	Long-press palette slot
Undo	Ctrl+Z	Undo Icon
Redo	Ctrl+Y	Redo Icon

Languages

Hex Cartographer supports 11 languages. The language is automatically detected from your Obsidian settings.

German, English, Chinese, Russian, Japanese, French, Portuguese, Korean, Spanish, Polish, Italian

License

This plugin is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0.

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