Products of a GIS: Maps and Other Information - Introducing Geographic Information Systems with ArcGIS - page 199

Run the cursor over each possibility that has a triangle pointer mark to note the options within
them. We will use a couple of them later.
2. Click Properties to bring up the Data Frame Properties window, which you have seen before.
The window has several tabs. List them in your Fast Facts File, starting with General, clicking on
each one to see what comes up.
Done? Yes ________ No ________.
3. Close the data Frame Properties window. Click somewhere away from any data frame. Now right-
click in that same place. A menu with many possibilities appears. These choices relate to the
map sheet as a whole. List the choices in your Fast Facts File. ( Zoom Whole Page, etc.)
Done? Yes ________ No ________.
4. Click ArcMap Options to bring up an ArcMap Options window. You should see several tabs. Click
on each one while listing them in your Fast Facts File.
Done? Yes ____ No _____. Close the ArcMap Options window.
You get the idea: Myriad possibilities for actions on your part. None of them particularly complicated, as it
turns out, but mind-boggling when taken all together. What we have just done is to let you take a first cut
at seeing just the names that suggest the possibilities that lie underneath.
In what follows, you will experiment with some of the data frame properties and layout options.
5. Right-click the layout page, somewhere outside all data frames, then select the Layout View
tab of the ArcMap Options window. You don't want the contents stretched when the window is
resized (for geographic data this is an unwelcome distortion). Show the horizontal and vertical
guides. Show a dashed line around the active data frame. Show the rulers, but not the grid. On
the rulers make the smallest division one-tenth of an inch. Snap elements to the guides, but
nothing else. Click Apply (if you changed anything), then click OK.
6. Narrow the T/C and close or hide any other windows, so you have a good view of the layout.
Zoom Whole page. Right-click the horizontal rule at the 1-inch mark. Click Set Guide. Notice the
little arrow that appears and the light blue vertical guide line. With the right-click menu, clear
that guide. Set it again. If the guide isn't exactly on the 1-inch mark, use the double-headed
cursor and drag it over. (A “RulerTip” will tell you the current position.)
7. Actually, if you just click a point on the ruler, a guide will be set. Set additional guides on the
horizontal ruler at 5 inches, 6 inches, and 10 inches. Set guides on the vertical ruler at 1 inch,
3.5 inches, 4.5 inches, and 7 inches. You will make the data frames fit into the rectangles
created by these guides.
You may have noticed that every time you change the size of a data frame, the scale changes.
If you want to keep, say, a constant 1:40,000, you have to keep typing it in the scale text box.
There is a way around this.
8. Pick a data frame and open the Properties window. Click the Data Frame tab. Under Extent in
the Data Frame Properties window select Fixed Scale from the drop-down menu and type 40000
in the text box. Click Apply, then OK. Notice that the Standard toolbar now shows 1:40,000, but