The occasion might arise when you’d like to print a large map, but don’t want to shrink it down to a 8.5 x 11 (or A4), thereby making it unreadable. The solution? Break out the scotch tape, and get ready to print your map on multiple pages! To do this, there’s a very minor dance that needs to take place between your MindMeister printing (export) options and how you tell your PDF viewer to physically print the map.

To get started printing your larger-than-life mind map, select ‘Print’ from the options in the top menu bar. This will open up a dialogue box that presents you with a number of printing options. While printing directly from the browser window is technically possible, we’d recommend first printing to a PDF, and then using your PDF reader’s print function to send it to the printer (things just tend to work better using this method).

In the options dialogue, you’ll see a dropdown menu that gives you the option to select your preferred paper size. To print your map to multiple pages, select the ‘full’ option. Finish the action by clicking ‘Print’.

From here, MindMeister will export your map to your installed PDF reader (most probably Adobe Acrobat), and will present you with the option to, or automatically download it depending on your browser settings.

Proceed to print a PDF as you normally would. However – and this might be a setting you’ve overlooked as well. In Acrobat’s print settings dialogue, under the dropdown menu for ‘Page Scaling’ select ‘Tile all pages’. This is the setting that tells your PDF reader that you want to print the map over multiple pages.

By exporting your mind maps to a PDF format, and then using the PDF reader to select how you’d like your maps printed is a great way to make sure that even your largest maps don’t get compressed down to an unreadable format on a standard 8.5 x 11 or A4 sized sheet of paper.

Here at MindMeister we’re constantly conversing with industry experts from across a wide range of disciplines, not only introducing them to what MindMeister can do for them, but also gathering their feedback. And while these conversations have yielded a number of valuable insights, they’re still one-to-one conversations. To this end, we thought we’d bring the conversation to you, and see what you’ve got to say about MindMeister. The Good, The Bad, and/or The Ugly – we want to hear it!

The survey has been designed to take no longer than 3 minutes (or less), and will not only give us a better picture of who you are, but also help us to bring you the features and improvements you’d most like to see.

If adding your voice and opinion to the conversation here at MindMeister isn’t enough to get you excited about filling out a survey, how about a chance to win one of five $100 gift certificates from Amazon? The way we see it, Amazon’s got something for everybody, why not you too?

The survey is open from Thursday, January 28th until Tuesday, February 4th at 4pm Central European Time. Winners of the raffle will be announced shortly there after.

Thanks for your continued support…we’re eagerly awaiting to hear what you’ve got to say!

Take me to the survey

Your financial life has a certain trajectory—similar to a train on a track. There will be twists and turns, but you can easily determine where you will end up if you stay on the financial track you’re currently on. What if the traditional methods of working hard, cutting expenses, and saving don’t work for you? Brown bagging it every day won’t cause you to jump tracks and end up somewhere completely different. The guy living in the mansion overlooking the ocean didn’t buy that house by clipping coupons, and the chick passing you in a $400,000 Maybach didn’t get that way by eliminating her morning latte. For most of us, the gap between where we are and where want to be is so wide that we’ll never be able to close it by following traditional financial advice.

What’s the solution? If you’re tired of scraping by you’ve got to create. If you want to move out of your apartment or make more than minimum wage, you’ve got to create. If you want a big house overlooking the ocean, to travel first class, to quit your job, or to drive your dream car, guess what? The answer is in the other 8 hours. The answer is to shift from being a full-time consumer to being a part-time Cre8tor.

A what? A Cre8tor is a creative entrepreneur who has a day job but wants more. He isn’t content with the status quo, and is less than thrilled with the thought of working another 40+ years. He knows that the only way to “jump the tracks” to get to a new financial level is to do something different during the other 8 hours. A Cre8tor utilizes his strengths, passions, and/or expertise to create something unique and valuable—maybe he’ll start a blog, work on an invention, write a screenplay, or start a business. If you settle for a paycheck, you’ll only be worth what your employer pays you. But if you create something valuable, there’s virtually no limit to your worth.

A long commute, brainless boss, and an empty bank account can wreak havoc on your outlook, hope, and purpose, but a side project or venture can bring inspiration to your life. When you’re passionate about what you’re creating during the other 8 hours, you can endure even the worst day. It will change your whole morning routine.

Creating provides purpose and it provides a reason to get out of bed in the morning. It provides the hope that life can improve. When you create, it engages your mind and your soul.

Should you really spend some of your precious other 8 hours creating, or would we be better off having fun and enjoying ourselves? Studies show that most of us are not fulfilled mentally or emotionally in our day jobs. We work, not because we are passionate about what we’re doing, but for a paycheck. Even though you might be stuck at your day job doing something that doesn’t fully capture your mind and heart, that doesn’t mean what you create during the other 8 hours has to feel like work. In fact, it shouldn’t feel like work at all. I want you to be excited and passionate about what you create and about the potential results you can achieve.

With very few exceptions, anybody who has attained any level of financial success has created something. It might be a book, a CD, an invention, a website, or whatever. Look around you. Everything you see was originally just an idea in someone’s head.

You are living in the most exciting and mind blowing time we have ever experienced. It is rich with opportunities that literally didn’t exist just a few years ago. Unless your last name was Rockefeller or Carnegie, it used to be incredibly difficult to become rich. Becoming a millionaire wasn’t even a dream or an ambition. It was such an impossibility that it wasn’t worth a moment’s thought.

Because of fantastic collaborative tools such as MindMeister, efficiencies, and a global economy, it’s much easier to become wealthy with much less effort than at any other time in history. As a Cre8tor, you’ll add more excitement and purpose into your life. You will live your passion and make more money.

The benefits to becoming a Cre8tor are clear. Now let me show you step-by-step how to become a Cre8tor. Go to other8hours.com to discover how you can become a Cre8tor and experience new wealth and purpose in your life.

P.S. – As an exclusive bonus, get four free critical resources that will help you live your richest life. Go to other8hours.com to get an Other 8 Hours assessment, poster, video, and audio now!

There are two unique ways to assign tasks within a MindMeister mind map, either manually or through our WunderTask feature. Manually assigning tasks can be used when you have only one or two action items to tackle. Conversely, if you’re dealing with multiple action items, or a large number of collaborators, WunderTask can be quite a time saver.

Manually Assigning Tasks

The option to assign tasks can be found under the Extras panel in the sidebar. Similar to Notes, Links, and Attachments, the tasks panel contains a number of customizable options.

To assign a task, first select the node that you’d like to assign a task to. Once highlighted, you may then assign a priority to this task. If you or your collaborators want to keep track of task completion, you can also select this option from the dropdown. In the date due field, you may either enter the date in mm/dd/yy format, or by clicking on the dropdown arrow, you can select the due date from a calendar interface.

Finally, in the ‘Assigned To’ field, you can start delegating who’s doing what. Those that you’ve already shared the map with will automatically be propagated in this list. Choose a name from your collaborators in the dropdown list, and they will then be assigned this task. If you’d like to assign a task to someone you’ve not yet shared the mind map with, you can manually enter his or her name in this field.

Using WunderTask

Similar to our WunderLink and WunderBild features, WunderTask can handle some of the heavy lifting for you. This can be particularly helpful when assigning a large number of tasks to numerous collaborators over a multitude of nodes.

To get started with WunderTask, select the node that you’d like to assign a task to. By clicking on the gear icon just below the ‘Assign To:’ field, WunderTask will automatically insert Priority, Completion, Due Date, and Assigned To options for you. By default, each WunderTask insertion will assign each task as priority 1. To change this you can either select priority levels from the dropdown menu in the sidebar, or simply click on the number icon. MindMeister will then automatically scroll through priority numbers for you. Likewise, the default Completion icon will be set to ‘not started’, and the Due Date is set to one week after the current date. Similar to manually adding tasks, all of these options may be altered in the sidebar options.

Advanced Options

If you want to delve even further into assigning tasks, the ‘Advanced’ link just below the ‘assigned to’ field is for you. In the advanced options panel you can set start date, due date, and duration of a specific task. Naturally, Priority, Completion, and Assigned To options can also be edited here.

In the Advanced Options dialogue, you’ll also be able to customize the email reminders feature. If your global settings are set to receive task notification emails (recommended), but you want to customize when you’ll receive reminders, this is where you can change them. From the dropdown, you can select any number of days before the assigned due date, up to one week.

By adding tasks to your collaborative brain storming sessions with MindMeister, you’ll be taking that brain storm and making an active plan of action out of it; one that all parties involved can follow and know what their exact part of the project is.

From now until the end of 2009, we’re offering a 15% discount on all Premium Account upgrades and purchases. Remember, Premium account holders have access to:

• Integrated live chat
• File attachments
• An unlimited amount of mindmaps
• Exports in a kinds of formats

And much more….

To share in the holiday cheer, upgrade your account and simply enter the code

xmas2009

in the Promotion Code field on the payment page and we’ll automatically take 15% off your Premium Account fee.

We’ve also almost completed a number of other frequently requested features which just didn’t make it into this release but should be available in early 2010. Organizing your mind maps into folders is in the works, as well as better formatting options, themes and templates for mind maps, disconnected (floating) nodes, and a number of task feature enhancements.

From all of us here at the MeisterLabs, have a safe, sound, and Happy Holiday Season!

In our continued commitment to bringing you the ultimate collaborative mind mapping experience we’re happy to announce a host of new features!

Si, nous parlons Dansk

MindMeister is now supported in six languages. In addition to our existing English, German and Japanese support, we’re happy to offer Spanish, French, and Danish versions. All versions have been proofread, but if you’re a native speaker of any of these languages and find an error – please let us know by sending us an email.

In-Map Chat

While we’ve supported Skype integration for quite some time, not everyone has, or has the ability to use Skype at all times while working on a mind map. To this end, we’ve introduced a chat feature directly within the browser window. To get started chatting with fellow collaborators, simply click on their name at the bottom of your mind map to open a chat window.

Embedded Maps now with Live Update

Initially debuted during the TEDxAmsterdam live mind mapping sessions, embedded maps now include the option to continuously poll MindMeister for updates. This option opens up an entirely new avenue in mind mapping, as live sessions can now be streamed to not only collaborators, but the entire world.

New publish features, embed wizard

You can now put your public maps in categories in the revamped Publish dialog and customize embedding options in the new Embed Wizard. Premium users can choose to hide the “Share” button and MindMeister logo in their embedded map.

Improved Public Map Features

Our public map listings have undergone a major change in the way that they are discoverable and shareable. Now searchable by both language and category, these changes should serve to improve the usefulness of the public maps directory, as well as make it far more easy to use as a reference and resource tool.

Monthly Payment Option for Team Users

Users of our Business and Academic Editions now have the option to pay on a monthly basis, as opposed to yearly. This now means that users will only pay for the time that they need to use our service – short projects, annual reviews, etc. At the same time, should Team Users opt for a yearly subscription, we’re now offering 2 months for free.

Additional new features

Faster and more relevant map search – searching through your mind maps has now been streamlined. By default, search parameters will search through your map titles. If no matching terms are found, the MindMeister system will then search through the text of all your maps until matches are found.

Better Email Notifications – we’ve improved a number of features within the email notifications that should allow users to more easily identify what changes have been made to what maps, and by whom.

Alphabetize now with numbers – the Alphabetize function now sorts numbers correctly.

During this festive time of year, we’d also like to take this space to wish each and every one of you a very Happy Holiday Season, and we look forward to seeing you in the New Year!

The MindMeister Team

Switching between maps

Whether you’re a power MindMeister user with a great number of maps, or a basic user limited to three maps, swapping between your various maps can be done without ever having to visit your main dashboard.

Most users’ initial reaction is to click on the MindMeister button located at the top left of the map user interface. This will take you back to your map listings and is a good method to get an overview of all your maps, i.e. with whom they’re shared and when they were last modified.

However, there’s a much faster and more efficient way to navigate your mind maps.

From within an active map, just below the navigator, you’ll notice four buttons, one with a drop down indicator.  This is the action we’re after. A click on this button will open up a dropdown that has the titles of your maps pre-populated. From here, simply select the map you’d like to work on and click. Your selected map will now be loaded, and ready for use.

No more swapping back to the main dashboard to find a desired map!

Viewing multiple maps

The occasion might arise when you’ll want to view certain ideas on one mind map, while referencing data within another map. You can use the method above to quickly swap between the two, but what if you want to go back and forth between maps and don’t want to reload them each time?

Thanks to the beauty of tabs, this is easily done. From your main maps listing, right click on the map ‘A’ that you want to view, and select ‘Open in a new tab’ (Note: in some browsers you can also just CTRL-click the map link). This will then open a new tab in your browser window with your selected map read to go. In your main browser window, click on the map you’d like to compare map ‘A’ with, and simply tab between the two.

Obviously this method can be applied as many times as you like, comparing one, two, three, etc. maps side by side within tabs.

In our next installment of the MeisterTips series, we’ll be addressing two of the more advanced features of working with maps:  Our cut/copy/paste feature which maintains all of your node structure, links, images, and parent/child relationships, as well as how to create entirely new maps from mind map nodes.

Whether you’re conducting a SWOT analysis of your competition and want to link out to their website, a student or professor using internal links to further explain a topic, or an individual user using links to point viewers to additional mind maps you may have created; using links is a great way to enrich your dataset. There are two unique ways to add links to your mind map: either manually, or using our WunderLink feature to seek out the most relevant topic link.

Manually entering links

The option to add links can be found under the Extras panel in the sidebar. The default linking option is set to URL. You can either manually type the web address into this field or paste the address from a separate browser window. Clicking anywhere else on your mind map will associate this link to your node. Chances are, you’ve already found the best link possible for your idea, but why not let the power of the Internet double check for you? By clicking on Advanced, you’ll be presented with a dialogue box that will automatically search for the most relevant links to your topic. If you find a link that better suits your topic, simply click on it, and then OK. This will then automatically insert the link to your selected node.

Internal linking

Similar to adding URL links, you can also link to topics within your current mind map, or any other of your MindMeister mind maps. From the links dropdown list, select ‘Topic’. Clicking in the text input area will then launch a dialogue box. By default, you’re presented with the option to link to different ideas within your mind map. This can be particularly beneficial in a mind map with a wide variety of nodes.

If you’d like to link to a completely different map altogether, you can select it from the dropdown menu at the top of this dialogue box. Selecting a new map will also give you the option to link to specific nodes (even sub nodes) within this new map, or the root node itself.

Email Links

Last but not least, you can also add email links to any selected node. Again, from the dropdown list, select Email. In the text input field, enter the email address you’d like to associate with this link. As with URLs, clicking anywhere else within your mind map will insert this link. You can even add multiple email addresses by separating them with commas.

Advanced Linking Options

Using WunderLink

The second method of adding links to your nodes is by letting the power of the Internet do the heavy lifting for you. Our WunderLink feature can be accessed by clicking on the gear logo located directly below the link dropdown menu. Technically speaking, WunderLink uses an API from Yahoo! to present you with the top search results based on your node text. 99.44 percent of the time, the link that WunderNote suggests will be the most relevant to your topic. If it’s not, or you do not want to use the link WunderLink has suggested, there are two options to change it.

The first method involves clicking the gear logo again. WunderLink will then insert the second search result from Yahoo! Clicking again will give you the third result, and so on.

The second method involves manually selecting the link(s) suggested by Yahoo! If you’d rather select the result yourself from Yahoo!’s results, you can access this via the ‘Advanced’ panel. Below ‘Show most popular results for ‘x’’ you can select any one of these search results to be used as your link.

By adding links to your mind map nodes you can exponentially add value and content, and thereby comprehension to your end user or collaborative team. Whether you choose to enter them manually, or by using our WunderLink feature, adding links can breathe new levels of understanding and interactivity into your mind map.

Tomorrow, another TEDx event will be taking place in the Dutch capital city of Amsterdam. Similar to other TED events that take place around the world, the TEDxAmsterdam event has a full schedule in place with speakers ranging from the Minister of European Affairs to the President of Programming and Development at MTV. In all, 450 option and business leaders from all walks of life will be attending the event hosted at the Royal Tropical Institute.

Since many a good idea have come out of previous TED events around the world, the TEDxAmsterdam organizers are going above and beyond to ensure that even those that could not attend the event in person will be able to share in the experience.

Live mind mapping courtesy of MindMeister

Even though we’ll not be physically at the event, MindMeister has been selected to take part in the TED experience. Throughout the day, selected speakers will have their talks mind mapped in real time using our software service. The live mind mapping team includes Alexis van Dam from hypershifters.com, Ronald Vijfhuizen of WorldofMinds.com and Jerre Lubberts from aHaCoaching.nl.

Our Dutch partners will be constructing mind maps of these talks live, and they’ll not only be projected around the event for all participants to view, but also live streamed at http://www.mindmeister.com/TEDxAmsterdam2009 for the entire world to share in.

The schedule of expected speakers can be found here, and events range from 9 am to 9 pm Central European Time. Should you not be able to tune in to any of the live mind mapping events, we’ll be archiving the content on the above URL for future reference and viewing.

Many thanks go out to the live mind mapping team in Amsterdam, and a sincere ‘enjoy!’ to all speakers and attendees of tomorrows event.

Please avoid taking your maps offline with Google Gears before the downtime as we’re also upgrading MindMeister’s offline capabilities.