ArcView practices practice 7 creating a layout and report in arcview

In ArcView, layouts are maps you create for printing (or other media like slides, digital graphics, etc. A layout will contain your map view, but also title, legend, north arrow, other text information, and even other graphics like charts or photos. Using a layout, you can produce some very high quality and impressive presentation graphics. The below is a simple example of the output. This sessions practice, therefore, aims to explore the layout and printing procedures as the final stage of ArcView GIS practice. As you are familiar with the data management, mapping and spatial analysis functions of ArcView, you need to create a report map and document containing your ArcView work. However, if you need detailed directions regarding how to create layouts, the best source is ArcViews online help (if you want to refer, go to the Help menu and choose Help Topics, click on the Contents tab, then go to Laying Out and Printing Maps)

ArcView Steps 46 

In ArcView, layouts are maps you create for printing (or other media like slides, digital

graphics, etc A layout will contain your map view, but also title, legend, north arrow, other text information, and even other graphics like charts or photos Using a layout, you can produce some very high quality and impressive presentation graphics The below is a simple example of the output

This session's practice, therefore, aims to explore the layout and printing procedures as the final stage of ArcView GIS practice As you are familiar with the data management, mapping and spatial analysis functions of ArcView, you need to create a report map and document containing your ArcView work However, if you need detailed directions regarding how to create layouts, the best source is ArcView's online help (if you want to refer, go to the Help menu and choose Help Topics, click on the Contents tab, then go to Laying Out and Printing Maps)

ArcView Steps

Step 1 Making sure View properties

Firstly, start ArcView, start a new project, add a view and set the working directory (to

'c:\temp') Add the themes of the last week's network analysis practice from the directory

'c:\arcv32\arcview\Av_gis30\avtutor\network\ ('customer.shp'; 'delIoc.shp'; 'hospital.shp';

's_fran.shp'; and 'shorelin.shp')

Now, you can see the themes on your View window and change the view name as "Hospital service areas" or your O\Vl1 title using 'View properties' (for this, select Properties on the View menu bar) Before you begin layout, make sure your View Properties are set, especially the View's name, the Map Units and Distance Units (set to 'decimal degrees' in the Map Units and 'miles' in the Distance Units)

Step 2 Getting started: opening Layout

A layout is a map that lets you display multiple views, charts, tables, and graphics and then formats them for printing

On the Project window select the Layouts icon and then press the New button A new layout will appear in your project like the below

A picture of a blank page appears Maximise this layout window by clicking the icon on the Window ( ) so you have plenty of space The very first thing you should do is to set

up your page size That will determine how you fit the other things onto your layout (map, title, etc) To set up the page size, choose Layout menu from the menu bar, then select Page Set up menu

After clicking the menu, you will see the Page Set Up pop-up menu like this,

After that, you can see several choices for changing layout formats For changing layout orientation, choose landscape Orientation icon (

) on the menu and press OK when finished After that you can see the change

in your layout display from portrait to landscape

You can give your layout a name by choosing

Properties menu on the Layout menu bar This is

especially useful if you are going to be creating

more than one map, since the default names of

Layout1, Layout2, Layout 3, etc can get

confusing

Step 3 Using layout tools

Presently, ycu have a blank but landscape

format layout in your window In order to create amap on the laycut, you need to us e the Layout Tools on the menu bar At first, you can see the Placement Tools The tools you see dropping down are yoor placement tools Use each of these to place various obj eels onto your layout

3.1 Add a view

To create a map for output containing

geographical data, you must first add a view to

your layout To add a view, at first, you need us e

the globe tool ( ) to place your View (the

actual map) Before you start, you need to check

the View window, in which all of the themes are

activated If they are not, you cannot put the

themes on the layout Then, you identify the

changed cursor shape (+) when you click the glob

e tool and move the cursor to the layout At now,

place the mouse key in the position where you want the themes to put on the layout, and then press the mouse button and drag to the other position For example, you can place the mouse key

in the upper-righter comer and drag it to the lower left corner

After releasing the mouse button, the View Frame Properties Box is brought up Make sure you connect this View Frame to the View you want to be displayed (not an empty view), and set the other parameters such as scale, display and live link

For Scale, to print the View exactly as you see it in the View window, choose

'Automatic' To preserve the existing View scale, as displayed in the View window,

choose 'Preserve View Scale' To plot or print at another specified scale, choose

'User-specified for Scale', and then type in the scale you want Live Link on the View Frame Properties means that any changes you make to the View will be reflected in the layout If Live Link is checked, the connection between the view and the layout is preserved For example, if you change the symbology in the view, or if you turn a theme on or off, the change is reflected in the layout For Display, it is useful to refresh the layout frame There are two choices, When Active and Always When you choos e When Active, the view frame will refresh only when the layout is active (i.e, it's the uppermost window in ArcView) When the layout isn't active (i.e, when it's not the uppermost window in ArcView), the contents of the view frame won't redraw until the layout is made active again This saves time when you are working with a live-linked view that contains a large number of features, because ArcView won't draw them in the layout each time you change your view Otherwise, you can choose Always option - The view frame will refresh whenever there is any change to the view

To delete or change the dimensions or modify the frame properties of any of these o~cts after

you have already placed them on your layout, click on the selection tool ( ), then click on the object on the layout to select it Press the delete button to delete or grab onto one of the corners

or sides to resize Click in the middle somewhere to move Double-click to change the properties

To see the results of your placements more closely, use the zoom in tool- this will zoom you into the page If you want to see the page at its actual size, choose Zoom to Actual on the Layout menu bar or choose one of the zoom tool bars

3.2 Add a legend, a scale bar and title

After adding a view, you can see add a legend to the layout The legend will show

the symbology for the themes that are displayed in the view To create the legend,

use the tool, .The way of positioning the legend is the same of the way of Step

3.1, pressing your mouse button and dragging your preference position After

releasing the button, this brings up the Legend Frame Properties Box Also make

sure you connect this to View you want to be displayed and click OK

Like in Step 3.1, you can resize or move the position of the legend on the layout by clicking on the selection button Also you can change the Display option, either When Active or Always When adding a scale bar, there are number of different styles supported by ArcView After you select a view to associate the scale bar to , you can select the type of units, interval values and number of intervals that the scale bar will have To display the scale bar, select from the

Placement Tools (the exactly same way of selecting the global and legend bars above) After positioning your mouse curse by dragging, you will get the Scale Frame Properties Box Make sure you connect it to the correct View (See the below View Frame)

Note that you can change the Units to be any units

you want the ArcView program will convert from the

original map units of miles to Kilometres or other

units Interval means how Long you want the little

breaks on the scale to be The left side of the scale is

broken up into smaller interval s, so Left Division

means how many of these small intervals you want

Play around with all these properties to see what they

do

ArcView has a variety of ways to place text or

labels on a view or layout Labels and text are only

slightly different in that labels get their text from an

attribute in a theme, while text is determined by you

typing in the text you want to show The diagram

shows the tools and examples of the kind of text or

label they add to a view or layout When you are

satisfied with the geographica lly based parts of your

layout, you can add a title to it To add a title or add

information on the layout, you need to use any of

these to place text

To add the title of your layout, choose the first text icon ( ) and then, you can see the changed the mouse Curse shape, (I) Move the mouse cursor to any position you want to write the title text and click your mouse button Then, the Text Properties box is shown You can type your title text On this properties box and click OK

Note that to change the colour, font size, etc., of any labels on the View or on the Layout, first use the Select Tool ( ) to select the text object you want to change (hold down the shift key to select multiple objects) Next go to Show Symbol Window On Window menu bar Or double click

on graphic

In the Symbol Window, click On the Font Palette to select font type, sue and style To change the colour of the title text, go to the colour palette

After selecting and positioning the themes on your layout, you can also resize by entering numeric values instead of using the selection tool, which sometimes cause troubles to position at the best side Choose Size and Position menu on the Graphics menu bar and then, you need type a relevant value representing your position Note that using this menu, you can position all of the graphic symbols on layout including text, scale bar, legend and view

3.3 Add other graphics to the layout

There are a number of additional "standard" graphics you can add to your layout You can place both ArcView tables and Charts on the layout if so desired in your output product You can also choose from a provisional list of north arrows, or import a file from another graphic package

into the layout

To add a north arrow, you need to use this tool, ~ and then you can choose an arrow type from the north arrow manager box To draw any additional graphics on your layout, you can use the drawing tools

Now, you can create some really high quality and interesting maps this way and

compare the below map I created

3.4 A important tip for creating layout (I)

In ArcView, there is another way to create a layout using Template manager Layout template contains predefined settings for layouts, which greatly facilitate making layouts in ArcView For a given project, you may want to define a layout, and save it as a template so that you will not have

to go to the trouble of redefining the setting for each Layout you create There are two ways to experience the Template layout - one is from Layout window and another one is from View window At first, with the new Layout active (before starting, you should create a new empty layout), click on Layout menu on the ArcView menu bar and then scroll down to Use Template from the menu and choose your choice (i.e Landscape)

After clicking OK button on the Template Manager menu, you can see the blank layout like below However do not panic because you should already familiar with the ways to create a layout through steps 3.1 - 3.3

Using the selection button, , you can fill the maps you want Move your mouse curse to '<Empty View>' section and double click Then, you are asked to select your target view, which is exactly the same procedure of the View Frame Properties (Page five) After choosing your view, the layout automatically shows the view map with a scale, legend and north arrow You can also change the types and position of the frames For <Empty Title>, you can also type a relevant title and change the text font, colour, size and other detail s (refer to pages 9 - 10)

3.5 A important tip for creating layout (II)

Now, you will experience another good tip to create a new layout from the View window Unlike the above ways, you should select View window and check the View properties details

such as Map Units and Distance Units Then, go to the View menu and scroll down to Layout menu and then click the menu This brings up the Template Manager menu choose a relevant layout type Then, it will ask you to choose either 'New Layout ' or existing layouts Choose '<New Layout>' and see the new layout format and how do this method compare with the other

methods?

It is noted that the creating layout requires artistic skills rather than sophisticated analysis techniques in GIS However, the documentation of your analysis results is also a critical point for interpreting your solutions The better the map created, the greater understanding of your

analysis results is provided!

3.6 Printing or exporting an ArcView layout

When you are finally satisfied with your layout you can send it to a printer You should already have set your page properties in ArcView as the first step in creating your layout – if you have not already done so, return to Step 2 or check with the Page Setup menu on Layout menu bar

After you have created a layout, use the Print Setup command on the File menu bar The interface below will appear with the following options:

For Printer Name, you need to know which printer s of the university network are connected to

your department or your username, which should be appeared on the 'Printer Name' If you are not confident, ask assistants or computer managers of your department When you select an appropriate printer name (type), the name, the status condition and the connected location will be appeared on the Printer Setup menu board For Paper Size, A4 paper size is normally used for printing your layout to a paper map If you set a special paper size, be sure the printer type and Paper Source Also, you should have set Orientation as the first step of creating a layout For now, you are recommended to choose 'Landscape' layout format Finally, make sure that your setting for paper size and orientation match what you specified for your layout Then, click OK button to print your layout Good luck!

We have several printers and plotters (if your departments have ones) available that export your layout at different formats It is important that the exporting task require a big disk space Therefore, if you really want to export your layout to other file formats, you are recommended to save the file into c:\temp rather than d: directory due to limited your disk space In general, there are two ways in ArcView one is to export to a digital format and another one is to print to a file

To export your layout to a digital image format, use Export menu on File menu bar in the ArcView Layout window and then, choose Windows Bitmap for example Then, you should type a suitable file name (i.e week8) in File Name in the Export pop-up menu

Also, you can choose the export file resolution by selecting Options on the Export menu After clicking Options, you are asked to choose a relevant resolution value in Windows Bitmap Options pop-up menu For example, you can select 144 DPI (Dots per Inches) resolution and click OK button Now, you come back to the Export menu and then, click OK to finish the export your layout to a picture file

You can check where the exported picture file (i.e week8.bmp) is in your directory (i.e

c:/temp) If you cannot find it out, ask instructors to trace the file You can open the exported file

on other document software such as MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint and so on For example, when you open 'MS Word', go to Insert on main menu and scroll down to Picture and then, select From File submenu After that, you search the exported picture file you saved and are able to insert the picture file on your Word document You should practice to familiar with this step on other

software packages such as Excel, PowerPoint or others If you are not success, ask the