6. PREPARING A PRINT-QUALITY MAP

1. Introduction

2. Setting up your project

3. Creating data (first steps)

4. Creating and editing data

5. Creating polygons

6a.  Layer arrangement

6b.  Layout setup

6c.  Adding map elements

6d.  Prepping your map for export

6.       Preparing a print-quality map

At this point, you’ve created all the data in digital form that will be present on your geologic map.  This next part will concentrate on organizing your map and preparing a finalized, pretty version worthy of hanging up on your grandmother’s refrigerator.  There are a number of different parts to this, and everyone will have their own personal preferences for how their finished map should look. This will guide you through setting up your map layout and placing all of the appropriate elements on the final map.

6a.  Arranging your layers

First things first, you want to make sure that all your data is visible on the map.  Since your data is in a few different layers, it is easy to re-order the layers so that certain things (e.g. your bedding data) isn’t buried underneath other stuff.  Here’s an example:

What I’ve done here is this:

–  Labeled all the bedding points with their dip, and unit polygons with their name abbreviations.

–  Ordered the layers (by moving them around within the “Table of Contents”) so that the bedding is on top, followed by the lines and unit polygons.

–  I’ve made the units 50% transparent in order to see the background hillshade model.  Easily done by opening up the “Layer Properties” window for the polygon feature class, and going to the “Display” tab.

NEXT:  Setting up the layout

Previous: Editing polygons

home