Editorial Review:Product Description:With the TOPO! North Carolina, South Carolina, National Geographic has taken the interactive topographic map experience to a new level. By combining its own standard-setting maps with the high-quality scanned versions of the actual paper USGS topographical maps, the National Geographic TOPO! State Series offers five levels of map detail that is unprecedented in its accuracy.Simply load TOPO!, and you'll immediately begin to see the benefits of this award-winning software. With TOPO! you can customize any of the hundreds of state maps available with your proposed routes, notes and even photos. You can also create and view elevation profiles that will help you visualize your planned trek. By connecting to any standard color or black-and-white desktop printer, TOPO! allows you to select the exact area that you want to print, even if it is larger than the screen or covers multiple quad maps. TOPO! makes it a breeze to add map border information to printouts, including UTM or latitude/longitude grids, scale bars, north arrows, and magnetic declination. With Adventure Paper (sold separately) you can print out waterproof trail mapsTOPO! is also GPS ready, with no extensions or upgrades required. Transferring waypoints and routes between your GPS and TOPO! couldn't be easier.The many advanced features that make the TOPO! mapping software the ultimate topographic map experience.* TOPO! USA Place Finder: Use TOPO!'s advanced search functions to find trails, camps, lakes, parks, towns, and much more in a matter of seconds.* Export Features: With TOPO! you can export customized maps in a number of different raster file formats (.gif, .jpg, etc.) for use in other applications.* Import Features: Import GPS and vector data from a variety of sources, including GPS receivers, spreadsheets, and the web, to overlay on your maps.* National Geographic mapXchange: Download custom map overlays and swap files with other TOPO! users on the NG mapXchange Website.
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
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Amazon Price is Weird?
this product (CA version) is listed for $149 at Amazon and at $99 at the National Geographic website and at REI. What's up with that? 50% over the MSRP?
Rating: 
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Worst user interface that I've ever seen
TOPO! has the worst user interface ever created. It doesn't follow the standard user interface designed by Apple, Adobe, and Microsoft.
- There's no hand tool to move around the map--rather you have to move your cursor to the edge of the screen and click to push the map around. Hard to control and creates lots of cursor movement
- The tool to draw routes is hard to control
Rating: -
Horrible UI, slow, and crash-prone
Do not waste your money on this horrible software. Even on a 2.4 GHz, 2 GB RAM MacBook Pro, it staggers to run. It takes an average of 20 seconds just to change zoom levels and pans incredibly slowly. Try drawing a route and half the time the whole thing freezes and crashes and you have to start over. I'll say it again - DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY!
Rating: 
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How To Increase Its Value
With TOPO, it makes a big difference if you copy the maps from the CDs to your hard drive. That results in a much faster and better experience. Directions for copying the maps to your hard drive are on the Topo web site. Some reviewers do not realize that.
The digital maps are an extremely good value compared to paper maps!! Live Map Updates is a feature of version 4. You can download the current maps and street overlays for the quads you are interested in! And that is free.
I have used versions 2, 3, and 4 of this product. Version 2 was excellent. Versions 3 and 4 are incremental improvements. On Amazon, it isn't always clear which version you are buying. Go by the dates -- version 4 was released in 2006.
The software is excellent. My only complaint is that it is a bit complicated to install. I don't think it has ever crashed on me. I use it a lot, and discover new features all the time. It is not hard to learn. GPS support is great, in my experience.
Rating: -
No backward compatibility. Very poor support
I now have their latest TOPO! 4.5, but cannot use it with my California State series maps. I've been exchanging e-mails with their customer support and they basically just recycle cut and paste's from their web site. At first I took their instructions (often contradictory) seriously and did everything they said, but none of it works. To make sure I tried it on a different computer. No go. The software often hangs up for long time, so anything you try kills a lot of time. I think it is just a very badly written code with no backward compatibility. I'm going to start looking for another product.
