How to use maps on the Cartography Table in Minecraft

Found often in Minecraft villages but also craftable by players themselves, Cartography Tables are a must-have for prospective adventurers hoping to explore the reaches of their world.

Cartography Tables operate in cohesion with the map item, changing them in a number of ways in order to provide players with a better exploration experience. Used to duplicate, expand, zoom out and halt discovery on a map, Cartography Tables can be a huge asset for any players hoping to chart out part of their world seed for further use. Since Minecraft worlds are so massive and have so many randomly generated areas and structures, keeping a map on-hand can be invaluable when departing from a home base or spawn area.

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Minecraft: Using maps with the Cartography Table

Image via Mojang

In Minecraft, Cartography Tables possess two slots that players can place items within. One of these slots is usually inhabited by a map, blank or otherwise, while the second slot's item tends to change the property of the map in some form. Within Minecraft: Java Edition, there are three primary recipes for the Cartography Table. In Bedrock Edition there are a few extra possibilities, namely the creation of empty maps, locator maps and renaming maps themselves.

The following recipes and their functions are listed below:

• Map (First Slot) + Paper (Second Slot): Expands on the map placed, clearing the image somewhat but retaining the area that the player has already explored.
• Map (First Slot) + Empty Map (Second Slot): Creates a clone of the map, allowing for multiple maps of the same type to be used. This can be incredibly helpful for multiplayer Minecraft.
• Map (First Slot) + Glass Pane (Second Slot): Locks the map used, preventing it from being explored any further and leaving unexplored portions remaining the same. This can be handy when trying to hide particular things in a game world from other players such as a secret base.
• Map (First Slot) + Compass (Second Slot) (Bedrock Edition): Converts the map into a Locator Map, which on top of providing traditional map functions also keeps track of players that reside in an area the map covers.
• Empty Map (First Slot) + Compass (Second Slot) (Bedrock Edition): Creates an empty Locator Map.
• Paper (First Slot) + (Empty Second Slot) (Bedrock Edition): Creates a standard map for the player.
• Paper (First Slot) + Compass (Second Slot) (Bedrock Edition): Additionally creates an empty Locator Map if the Minecraft player does not already possess a blank map.

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