I'm trying to create a large map by fitting together 90 A4 map-sections. I'm hoping to be able to save as a jpg and view the whole map in XnView and/or perhaps ViewingDale with significant zoom and pan facilities.

The 90 jpgs have a total size of around 250MB, so I imagine the finished map will be a similar size, covering an area of some 30k x 20k pixels.

However, software such as MSPaint, MTPaint, and GIMP want to do the assembling as a bitmap, with a filesize of over 5GB!

Firstly, I think GIMP is the only application I have that will handle files that big, (I'm not sure it can handle it) and secondly, I can't configure GIMP to build a map that size because my HDD isn't that big.

I literally don't have the space to create a 5GB image even if the software can handle it.

A 250MB image might be doable - if I could find a way to assemble it in jpg format rather than assembling as a bitmap then saving as a jpg.

Can anyone think of a way around this, short of buying a bigger HDD for a one-off job?

Thanks in advance.