[NewLark]

Is there a downloadable program or other means/method to print hard copies of the NOAA charts on your home printer?

[GPSNavX]

GPSNavX can "Save As.." the free NOAA charts as a TIFF file which can then be printed using "Preview" or any number of other image viewer/editor applications.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2506

[FF44]

You will have a tutorial about printing with GPSNavX / MacENC.

[NewLark]

We have recently purchased the MacEnc program, which by the way we think is great. Is there no such printing capability with this program?

[GPSNavX]

MacENC "Print..." on the "File" menu will print what you see in the Chart window. It also offers the "SaveAs..." for raster charts.

[georgelewisray]

Have not used this but it looks promising, for USA only.
http://www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/staff...Chart.html

Works only for BSB format charts.
http://www.Apocgraphy.com/Charts/Default.htm

I use Coastal Explorer on an XP netbook these days (old bad habit) and the print function is great when it works and does not crash the app.

Being able to print selected parts of a chart is important to me. ...... e.g. recent delivery Brasil to Trinidad I had digital (Brasil free raster on netbook and rented navonicson iNavX on iPhone) and paper (Bellingham Charts 2/3 size B&W). The approach and entry to Chaguaramas in NW Trinidad is very straight forward but I wanted some paper copy to back up the several digital options. I this case I had an old small scale digital that I printed a portion using CE's print function and I also printed some google earth screens with grid turned on. The google earth was good for having an overview of continental shelf and sea mount locations.

[georgelewisray]

Open CPN website:
page with links to various chart conversion programs, utilities, API libraries

Chart Conversion
BSB Lib
The mc2bsbh Utility
KAP-File Utility
For Google Earth:
GE2KAP
ChartAid
Overlay NOAA raster charts in Google Earth
Script to Convert MaxSea Routes to GPX

http://opencpn.org/node/145