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+TopoTiler Readme
+================
+
+What Does This Do?
+------------------
+
+This program allows you to turn USGS GeoPDF files (such as those from the
+`National Map <https://nationalmap.gov>`_ program) into tileable GeoTIFF
+files.
+
+By "tileable" I mean suitable for tiling into a complete raster
+layer with gdalwarp or some other such tool. This implies that the so-called
+"map collar" (i.e. the margin and any notation therein, basically anything
+other than the represenataional body of the map) is removed and cropped
+away.
+
+Why Do This?
+------------
+
+It allows one to use such maps as the basis for a raster layer in QGIS
+and other GIS programs.
+
+The National Map products are very nice, high-quality topo maps. Their greatest
+flaw is that they are distributed only as GeoPDF documents, and such a format
+is really only useful for generating printed output (and not as input to a GIS).
+Rendering such documents into tileable raster data is the easiest workaround
+to this drawback.
+
+Why Is This Only a Command-Line Program?
+----------------------------------------
+
+Two reasons:
+
+1. I have not yet had time to write a GUI front end for it. I wrote TopoTiler
+   to serve an occasional need of mine, and a command-line utility works well
+   enough.
+2. I am not yet certain if there is really a need to. A lot of that depends
+   on the need for TopoTiler in the first place. If this program proves useful
+   to a lot of people, and the consensus among its user base is that a GUI
+   would be beneficial, I will probably add one.
+   
+Prerequisites
+-------------
+
+This program requires `python3 <https://python.org/>`_ (specifically, Python 3.9 or better), the
+`Pillow Python library <https://python-pillow.org/>`_, and
+`GDAL <https://gdal.org/>`_ to be installed.
+
+make-tile
+---------
+
+This is the executable script to run.
+
+Synopsis
+^^^^^^^^
+
+``make-tile`` [``-l``/``--layers`` *list*] [``-r``/``--resolution`` *dpi*] *file*
+
+Convert USGS GeoPDF to tileable GeoTIFF. Input files must have an
+extension of ``.pdf`` (case insensitive). Output files will be generated to
+match each input file, with an extension of ``.tiff``.
+
+Arguments
+^^^^^^^^^
+
+-l/--layers
+        Comma-separated list of layers to include. See below for default.
+-r/--resolution
+        Output resolution in DPI. Default is 300.
+        
+Environment
+^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+``GDALBIN`` may be set to the directory containing the GDAL executables. If
+so, they will only be looked for there. Else the standard execution path
+will be searched.
+
+``TMPDIR`` may be set to a place to write temporary files. Doing so is a
+good idea if ``make-tile`` runs out of space in the default temporary files
+area (this program makes very large scratch files).
+
+Layers
+^^^^^^
+
+By default, all ``Map_Frame`` layers, except for
+``Map_Frame.Projection_and_Grids`` and
+``Map_Frame.Terrain.Shaded_Relief``, will be included. This behavior can be
+changed with the ``--layers`` option. 
+