Printing storymaps to PDF - improving layout?

Question

Hello

We've a number of large storymap douments we need to print.  In order to do this we need to print them to PDF and combine them into one large document.  Here is an example of one of the stories:

https://arcg.is/8b0rS0

The issue I am having is one of the look.  When I am trying to print to PDF it feels messy.  It leaves lines on the paper (see attached image), and "powered by ESRI" text in some places.  Also, it leaves large gaps etc.  Is there any way to tidy this up for printing?  It all feels a bit clunky 🙂

Thanks

S

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SimonLaughton · Answer

Hello Owen

Sorry to drag you back to an old post, but we are just discussing this in our place of work.  Looking this this story: Chapter 3: Urban Renewal Site Options (arcgis.com)

I can see there has definitely been some layout improvements when it comes to printing a Story to PDF, but all of the maps are just coming out as grey boxes and it seems to let them split over two pages.  Any suggestions?  I'll attach a snip of the PDF as it is more than 9mb. Thanks,

S

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oevans_storymaps · Answer

@SimonTDC -- Yes, there are definitely many challenges we face in taking a dynamic, responsive, and interactive format like StoryMaps and converting it to a static, limited format like a PDF. 😕

The problem with maps not loading is the same one I mentioned above. For longer stories with a lot of maps, there is an issue that prevents some maps from loading in the print layout. This is not an issue for stories with fewer maps. Since each map is different, unfortunately there isn't a specific number of maps when this issue starts to occur, so it's difficult to predict.

I know this is not convenient, but if you require a printed version of a longer story that is experiencing this problem you can duplicate the story, replace the maps with screenshots in the duplicate story, and print the story using the duplicate.

SimonLaughton · Answer

Hello Owen

Thank you.  It does all feel a bit "clunky" when printing to PDF - but I appreciate the main purpose for StoryMaps is online not print.

One main issue I am having is that when I print to PDF it doesnt seem to print the interactive maps?  Is this a known issue?  It is going to be a big problem for me as the document I am working for is shows site options for potential housing development and has a map for each site.  Without the map for the site printing it will cause big issues as Ill have to manually go in and insert an image of each site! Thanks