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I was wondering if any other posters have used programs to do the following (preferably free software which works offline).

1. Map making ie create your own fictional maps

2. Timeline generator - basically create a timeline for presentations, although I just plan to use it to keep track of events in my fictional universe.

Any help would be appreciated.

#1 - Graph paper or hex?
#2 - Use Excel.

I was hoping of a fictional map generator in the same vein games like MM6 allows you to create your own fictional maps to campaign in. In other words, requires a visual interface and relatively intuitive to use. Obviously these maps are just to help me visualise my own fictional universes I play in.

For maps, I'd just suggest pencil/paper, or if you need something digital then go with any free graphics tool of your choice; candidates for that are GIMP or Inkscape.
There do exist free GIS tools, such as Quantum GIS, but I doubt that you're worried about creating maps that are defined in a terrestrial coordinate system - I can only see this being relevant if, for example, you're concerned about the distortion involved in different projections of continent-sized geography.

If by campaign maps you mean something that's easy to do an online campaign, and image files don't work, you can try looking into http://www.maplib.net/. It's basically google maps on a custom image file you upload.

GIMP, Inkscape, and Quantum GIS are found at the first search results for each item.

I don't have any suggestions for timeline software, sorry.

If you want to PM me, I can see if I can dig you up my old copy of ProFantasy's CC2.
As for item 2, don't really have a grasp on what you're wanting here, but I doubt I can help you anyway.

http://www.profantasy.com/products/ss1.asp

So this is profantasy. It looks like what I need and in more detail. For those people who pick up a Fantasy book, there is usually a map just to give readers an idea of the geography. Thats sort of what I am looking for. Its purely to help visualise my own fictional universe, the continents and countries etc.

mr friendly guy wrote:I was wondering if any other posters have used programs to do the following (preferably free software which works offline).

1. Map making ie create your own fictional maps

2. Timeline generator - basically create a timeline for presentations, although I just plan to use it to keep track of events in my fictional universe.

Any help would be appreciated.

If you want a more basic thingie for mapmaking then you have the free GNU Autorealm software
http://www.rpglibrary.org/software/autorealm/
it isn't great but its good enough. It's best two features are FRACTAL curves, which means that you can zoom endlessly into a coastline. So you can have several handouts of different scales while retaining the overall map's integrity.

For timeline I'd simply go with powerpoint. Unless you have some criteria that you do not mention?

When I say timeline I was referring to something like this. I have seen a few sites for it, but unfortunately they seem online, or will only allow the demo version. I prefer an offline version as I will continually add to it, because its a timeline of my fictional universe, so I need to add things as I imagine them.

For now I can get away with using microsoft word and creating a table with 3 columns - for year, event, notes (ie which chapters these events appear in). It obviously doesn't look as visually nice as one where you can get graphics.

Uhm, you could get exactly those kinds of hover-popups using word or powerpoint. The only thing it wouldn't do is put it on the right dot of the timeline, that you have to do yourself.