Map Layout settings with GIS datasets within GIS

Map Layout settings within GIS

GIS provides several tools to lay out your map in an effective manner. Furthermore, GIS lets you work in data view or layout view:

• Data view focuses on a single data frame: useful for exploring or editing data.
• Layout view shows how the map page looks: useful for composing and printing a map for display. For example, you can change the size and orientation of the page in the layout view.

Map templates

If the map is part of a series, you may have a template to work from, or you may create a new template for the series. Map templates make it easy to produce maps that conform to a standard, and they save time by letting you do the layout work for all of the maps in the series at once. You can also use the map templates that come with GIS to quickly make a map that looks good, with a minimal amount of layout work on your part. Just choose a template that has the look you want, add your data, and make whatever changes you want, and your map is done. Map templates make it easy to reuse the same layout or even the same data on a series of maps. You can use the templates that come with GIS to make maps quickly. All you need to do is add data, a title, and any other supporting information that you choose. Templates can also contain data, special symbols and styles, custom toolbars, and macros such as Visual Basic forms and modules. GIS comes with many predefined templates to choose from when making your maps. Also, any map you make can be saved as a template.