Purple Pen

Purple Pen is course setting software for orienteering. Purple Pen makes it easy to design orienteering courses and their associated control descriptions.

Design your courses visually — directly on any OCAD map, OpenOrienteering Map, or PDF map. View the course and the control descriptions at the same time, and simply click on the control descriptions to set the correct description for each control. Purple Pen automatically does all the busywork:

- Print maps with courses overprints directly (without needing OCAD), or export course maps to OCAD or OpenOrienteering Mapper for final printing, or create PDF files for a print shop.

- Use either an OCAD map (OCAD versions 6-12 supported), OpenOrienteering Mapper map, PDF map, or bitmap map (JPG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, BMP).

- Print a perfectly formatted control description sheet, with symbolic or textual descriptions (or both). Textual descriptions are automatically generated. Description sheets can be placed onto the map.

- Calculate the length of each course automatically.

- Make sure that the codes and descriptions of shared controls are in sync.

- View or print an all controls map.

- Easily change control codes — one at a time or all at once.

- Calculate how many competitors are visiting a control or running a leg.

- Print master punch cards for easy control card checking.

- Export course data to event management or electronic punching software (IOF standard XML format, version 2 or version 3).

- View or print several different reports about the courses and controls.

- Download control locations to your mobile GPS device.

- Supports both the IOF 2000, 2018, and 2024 control description standards.

Best of all, Purple Pen is completely free software.

Purple Pen runs on Windows 7 through Windows 10. On Mac or Linux, a Windows emulator such as Parallels or VirtualBox is required. See here for more information.

Purple Pen is available in English, French, German, Swedish, Spanish, Norwegian (Bokmal and Nynorsk), Finnish, Polish, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Estonian, and Japanese. Documentation in English and Norwegian only.

Directly Uses OCAD Maps, OpenOrienteering Maps, and PDF maps

Purple Pen directly loads and displays an OCAD map for your event. OCAD versions 6 and above are supported. For those using OpenOrienteering Mapper, Purple Pen fully supports that file format (.omap/.xmap) also. You design your courses directly on the OCAD or OOM map, which can be displayed at any level of detail. You can also use a bitmap file such as TIFF or JPEG as a map, or use a PDF file as a map.

Simple User Interface

Purple Pen uses a simple user interface with a single window that displays both the course and control descriptions simultaneously. Many changes can be done by simply clicking on what you want to change and making the change directly. No special "preview" modes -- everything is live all the time. Every change can be undone, with up to 100 levels of undo and redo. Simplicity was the guiding principle in designing Purple Pen.

Conforms to IOF Standards

Purple Pen fully supports the IOF 2004 and 2018 Control Description Standards. Purple Pen can create standard IOF XML interchange files (both version 2 and version 3), which allow the course data to be directly transferred to electronic punching or event management programs.

Advanced Features

Although designed for simplicity, Purple Pen handles your advanced needs also.

- Add a map exchange to a course and print separate or combined maps and control descriptions.

- Add variations to a course (also known as relays or gaffling).

- Add additional text, lines, or images onto your maps.

- Get a complete cross-reference of every control and which course uses it.

- Compute the competitor load of all controls and legs.

- Create master punch patterns for pin-punches.

- Export IOF XML files for electronic scoring systems or event management systems.

- Automatically create text versions of control descriptions, in any of 18 supported languages. Customize the text also.

- Add additional text before, after, or in the middle of the control description.

- And many more features...