MAP Theme Legends

A legend can be created from any MAP Theme—Stylesheets, Dot Density, and Charts. Each theme has its own options and settings to create a legend. A legend is composed of boxes to represent area layers, lines to represent line layers, point symbols to represent point layers, and text for text layers.

Using MAP Theme Legends

MAP Theme legends must be added to a Legend layer. One can be created first using the Add MAP Layer button in the MAP Views panel and choosing a Legend feature type. Alternatively, MAP Themes will create one if no Legend layers are present.

To create a legend, select a MAP Theme and click the Create Legend button at the bottom of the panel. Alternatively, choose Create Legend in the panel options menu.

The Legend Editor dialogue box will differ depending on the type of MAP theme chosen: Stylesheets open the Stylesheet Legend Editor, Dot Density opens the Create Dot Density Legend, and Charts open the Create Chart Legend.

Similar to other MAPublisher functions, the legend editors are dependent on several Adobe Illustrator panels including Swatches, Graphic Styles, and Character Styles to style legend symbol elements. Populate these panels with swatches and styles before creating legends.

Legends can be updated based on changes made to the MAP theme. To completely edit legend elements, use the Direct Selection tool and edit the elements in isolation mode or ungroup (menu Object > Ungroup).

Stylesheet Legend Editor

The Stylesheet Legend Editor is used to create legends from point, line, and area Stylesheet MAP Themes.

On the Legend Entries tab, the Legend Entries list determines how many items are listed in the legend. Use the Add and Remove entry buttons to adjust how many entries are listed and use the Up and Down arrows to adjust the hierarchy. Select a legend entry and adjust the Display name and Display expression. These labels are used in the legend and are dependent on whether or not the Include name and Include expression options are enabled in the Legend Key Options (below).

On the Legend Key Options tab, the Include icon option is enabled by default. This is the legend icon to the left of an entry display name. Edit the size of the graphic using the vertical and horizontal size adjustments. Click the Advanced button to apply more than one rule style to a legend layer. This may be useful in cases where two styles such as one for a highway and one to represent high traffic volume, can be both chosen for one legend entry to represent a high trafficked highway. In addition, there are many shapes available in the Icon style drop-down list. The Icon style list is different for Line and Area Stylesheet themes (unavailable for Point Stylesheet themes). Use the Alignment option to align the legend entries left, center, or right. Use the Columns option to adjust how many columns are in the legend. The minimum number of columns is one and the maximum number is dependent on how many legend entries exist. The Space between entries option determines the distance between each entry.

On the Title tab, use the Draw title options to add a title to the legend. Specify a title in the Label box and use the options to align and set a style. Enable the Draw title line option to place a horizontal line in between the title and the legend entries. The element Spacing option determines the distance between the title, title line, and legend entries.

On the Border tab, use the Draw border options to add a border around the legend entries. Toggle between Custom Mode and Graphic Style Mode to choose border style settings.

Create Dot Density Legend

The Create Dot Density Legend dialog box is used to create a legend from Dot Density MAP Themes.

By default, the Use actual size check box for the Dot icon size setting is enabled. Uncheck it to manually set size (in pixels). The preview shows how the legend will look depending on the settings. Adjust the Dot spacing option to increase or decrease the distance between the dot and the legend label.

The Legend label box provides the legend with a title. It uses a %value% variable to determine the value from the Dot Density theme. To adjust the value, close this dialogue box, and edit the Dot Density theme. Click the label appearance link to change the label font, style, and size.

By default, the Border option is enabled. Use the options in either Custom Mode or Graphic Style Mode to set the style of the border. Increase or decrease the value Margin option to adjust the distance between the legend label and the border.

 

Create Chart Legend

The Create Chart Legend dialog box is used to create legends from Chart MAP Themes.

Click the Label appearance link to change the font, style, and size of the legend entry labels.

In the Style tab, the Style drop-down list has two options: Standard and Chart. The Standard option gives the legend an icon style (see above). The Chart option provides more options to create a legend that is representative of the chart. When the legend is created for the Standard style, these options are provided:

When the legend is created for the Chart style, these options are provided:

The chart size is the overall size of the chart, not the individual bars themselves. The Label offset is the distance between the bars and their respective label. The Do not apply chart graphic style option removes any graphic styles that were applied to the chart when it was created. The Label angle rotates the label to a specified degree. Bar sizes can be set to Increasing, Decreasing, or Equal. These are for visual purposes only and do not reflect the actual data.

For pie charts, by default, the Ignore explodes option does not display an exploded pie chart in the legend when it is checked. Set a Rotation to rotate the pie chart clockwise.

 

In the Title & Border tab, use the Draw title options to add a title to the legend. Specify a title in the title box and use the options to align and set a style. Enable the Draw title line option to place a horizontal line in between the title and the legend entries. Use Custom Mode or Graphic Style Mode to set the line style.

By default, the Draw border option is enabled. Use the options in either Custom Mode or Graphic Style Mode to set the style of the border. Increase or decrease the value Margin option to adjust the distance between the legend entries and the border.

Updating MAP Theme Legends

When changes to a MAP Theme are made (such as colour, name, or rule) you have the ability to automatically update the MAP Theme legend or manually update the MAP Theme Legend.

 When updating, some rules in a MAP Stylesheet may create a legend with unexpected results. You can either disable automatic legend update or leave it enabled and manually adjust your legend after applying it.

Automatically Update Legends

When creating a MAP Theme legend, go to the Updating tab to see more settings of how changes are handled when a MAP theme is updated. The Automatically update legend when source theme changes checkbox (enabled by default) controls when an existing legend is updated on the artboard. When making changes to an existing MAP Theme (such as colour, name, or rule), the legend will automatically update with the appropriate changes when applied. Depending on your requirements, this can be disabled so that an update can be manually performed through the Create MAP Theme Legend dialogue box and clicking Update.

 

 

When enabled, the Match original legend extents check box will maintain the size of the existing legend. The Maintain aspect ratio will maintain the height and width ratio of the existing legend and will allow the legend size to decrease or increase in size. It is recommended to maintain an aspect ratio to prevent legend text and icon distortion. Choose an Anchor setting to adjust how the legend is positioned if it is resized after an update.

To update a legend that has been modified, choose one of the 3 options below:

• Click the Apply button in the Edit Stylesheet Theme dialogue box,
• Click the Apply button in the MAP Themes panel,
• Click the Update button in the Create Stylesheet Legend dialogue box.