Technical Tips

Introduction

Map Templates

Data View Versus Layout View

Legends

Page Resizing

Saving Templates

Other Issues

Introduction

Over the past twelve months, Spatial Vision has been providing solutions to clients using the new ArcGIS suite of products. ArcGIS is based on the ESRI Arc version 8.x series of desktop applications. In particular Spatial Vision has been developing a niche in providing solutions for the Water Industry utilising the network functionality provided by ESRI as part of the Geodatabase. Typically our clients require a range of map templates complete with corporate livery and legal disclaimers to suit the available printing devices throughout their organisation, ranging from A4 to A0, in both Landscape and Portrait modes. The goal is to provide a template that can suit any data view at any scale, irrespective of the number of datasets in the data view at a given time. By providing templates you can reduce one of the most time-consuming components of operating a corporate GIS: producing standardised high quality mapping products.

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Map Templates

Having worked with map templates over the past twelve months, I have been impressed with the cartographic design tools available. Anyone familiar with the drawing tools available in the Microsoft Office suite of applications will immediately feel comfortable with the tools for adding graphic primitives, adding and manipulating text and the grouping/arranging tools provided in the lower left-hand corner of the interface. In addition the labelling tools provide superior functionality to those in ArcView 3.x, with such features as the ability to incorporate Visual Basic functions and the ability to label data with multiple fields.

Figure 1: Graphics Tools - Straight from Microsoft Office

Having said that, there are a number of inconsistencies with the map document format (.mxt) that make the modification of an initial map template to suit a number of different page formats problematic. Here are a number of tips and tricks that I have come across.

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Data View Versus Layout View

Whereas ArcView 3.x allowed multiple views to be visible on the screen at any one time, ArcMap requires you to have one active data frame at a time. To view multiple frames within the one window you must be in Layout View. This allows you to position multiple data frames on the one template (layout). To activate a data frame you select it using the 'Select' tool.

When you change from Data View to Layout View, the 'Layout Tools' are enabled. For any new user to ArcMap, it is important to differentiate between the effects of using the Layout tools and the View tools, particularly the Zoom tools. The Zoom tools on the layout bar allow you to move around the layout, whereas those on the 'Standard' tool bar relate specifically to the extent of the current active data frame.

Figure 2: Layout tool with Zoom Percentage Set to 100%

Figure 3 : Standard Tools with 'Select' tool activated

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Legends

Multi-column legends should not be included in templates that are intended for use with a variety of Map Documents or projects. The reason being that when you open up a template, by default the original formatted legend in your saved template is replaced with a single column legend that is re-sized from the lower-left corner of the original legend's location. This legend then needs to be manipulated by the user to be able to fit within the allocated space.

In most cases you will want to size your legend from the top of the screen. If you do this, when you open up your template from a map document with more complex symbology, your legend will re-size off the top of the page. This will occur even if you have set the anchor point for your legend in your template to be the top-left hand corner.

The only practical solution to this problem is to place you legend at the lower-left hand corner of any box that you may have allowed for your legend. In this way you minimise the likelihood of user intervention being required in the map production process.

In addition, it should be noted that any modification to the formatting of individual legend elements within the legend will be lost when you load up the map template.

Figure 4: Standard Template with legend anchored to lower-left corner

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Page Resizing

By selecting the Page Setup tool you can alter the Page Size and Orientation of your template. ArcMap generally does a good job at resizing objects to fit the new page size. However there are a number of things of which to be aware. When resizing text, ArcMap does not re-size text to standard font sizes. This is not necessarily a problem although font sizes below about 5pt tend to become illegible. Generally when resizing layouts it is worth reviewing the fonts after resizing. The best way to do this is to select 100% as your zoom percentage on the Layout tool bar. This will allow you to view the fonts roughly as they will appear on the printed product and provides the best opportunity to adjust abnormally large or small fonts.

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Saving Templates (.mxt)

ArcMap does not allow you to save templates based on other map templates. Effectively this means that you cannot make modifications, such as to page orientation or page size, and then save the document as a new template using the 'Save As' option. Whilst the software will actually allow you to do this, when you try to open up the new map template from a project document (mxd) you will get an application error.

To resolve this issue, you have to copy all the map elements that are not associated with a Data Frame into a new project document (.mxd) and save them as a template (.mxt) from there. All map elements that are associated with the data frame, including legends, north arrows and map grids will have to be recreated.

Minor modifications to templates are allowed, however it is worth noting that when you save the template copies of some original objects, such as legends, are also saved in the map template, despite being invisible. To verify this, make a copy of the original document, make a small change to your template and save the original. Comparing the sizes on the two documents will show that the file size has almost doubled. This means that you should always aim to get your template right the first time.

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Other Issues

One of the complaints directed against ArcMap is that you cannot have more than one map template associated with an ArcMap Document as you could in ArcView 3.x. By default you have to open a new map template. Whilst I accept that this is a valid criticism, I think the ability to be able to manipulate your data frame whilst in 'layout view' compensates for this inconvenience. After all, you can only print one map at a time.

Another criticism levelled at ArcGIS is that there is no generic capability to generate map series within the base product, a criticism that the ESRI team aims to redress in the near future with a subsequent release.

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Copyright © Spatial Vision, Friday, 21-June-2002