Creating a Map with ArcMap - Tufts University

• Turn on the town boundary labels.
• Now go to Layout view (View - Layout View) and you will see both data frames in the layout.
• You can select one data frame for moving or resizing by using the Select pointer icon ( ). Play
around with moving and resizing data frames. To switch data frames, you must select it with the
pointer icon. This is what can get confusing, but when you finally get the hang of it, it can be a
very powerful tool.
• In Layout view, you can activate one of the data frames by double-clicking on it. For example, say
you want to set the scale of one data frame to 1:24,000 and the other data frame to 1:100,000.
Double-click on the first one, and set the scale, then double-click on the second one to set the scale
for that one.
• Try making a small locator map using a second data frame - it should have the major roads, town
boundaries, and rivers in it.
• As you play, make sure you save your map file, preferably under a new name so that if you mess
up you can reload an earlier version.
Setting up a locator boundary box
If you have two data frames, including one that is a locator map for the larger map (e.g., the Boston area),
you can set up a boundary as in the graphic map example earlier. To do this:
• go to the Data Frame Properties for the new data frame (the one that will be the locator map –
right-click on the Frame name to get its properties)
• Click on the Extent Rectangles tab
• Under the Other Data Frame column, highlight the data frame for which you want a bounding box
and then click on the right-pointing arrow to put it in the right-hand column under Show Extent
Rectangles for these data frames
• Click OK
Part 9 - Printing or exporting layouts
You can print directly from ArcMap or you can export to a digital graphic format like .pdf. Printing works
just like any other Windows program. We will talk more about printing options and good resolution in
class.
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