topic Re: Best way to create maps at different scale levels in Mapping Questions

Best way to create maps at different scale levels

NavKa — Fri, 20 May 2016 13:51:00 GMT

Hello,

I am trying to create different county level maps which provide same information but will be at different zoom level of different counties depending on zoom level to fit in the county size. Maps will have place labels which need to be adjusted in AdobeIllustrator. I am trying to approach it so that same labels can be used in future maps i was thinking to create separate mxd for all counties so that zoom level and location and dimensions stay same but we can use labels from previous maps. If anybody has any suggestions to handle it more efficiently and faster please share your view points. These will be print quality maps.

Thanks!

Re: Best way to create maps at different scale levels

AdrianWelsh — Fri, 20 May 2016 14:02:15 GMT

Hi Nav,

Have you thought about creating Map Books through the Data Driven Pages toolbar?

What are Data Driven Pages?—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop

Creating Data Driven Pages—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop

This may be able to solve the issue that you have and would allow all of the data to remain in one mxd. You would also need to create some scale dependencies for your labels as well:

Setting scale ranges for label classes—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop

Re: Best way to create maps at different scale levels

DanPatterson_Retired — Fri, 20 May 2016 14:14:03 GMT

and for quick reference while mapping Using spatial bookmarks—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop

Re: Best way to create maps at different scale levels

NavKa — Mon, 23 May 2016 19:04:57 GMT

Thanks for your reply after exploring the data driven pages I feel it might be the answer for my issue since it keeps the scale for different features. so for each map there is base layer and then their is additional county specific data which i want to show just for specific county map. Is there any way to select just one feature except by definition query but then u can't really go next on data driven pages since u have only on feature in your section. Is there any work around it. so that only one county is highlighted and themed data is shown just of that one county and rest of the base layer is there for all counties.

Thanks for your help!

Re: Best way to create maps at different scale levels

AdrianWelsh — Mon, 23 May 2016 19:40:18 GMT

Hi Nav,

Yes, that can be done. You will want to set up a Page Definition Query. Check out the article here:

Using Page Definition Queries—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop

For an older article with a more step-wise process, see this one:

41354 - Highlight the current index feature when using Data Driven Pages

Re: Best way to create maps at different scale levels

NavKa — Fri, 27 May 2016 16:12:14 GMT

Dear Adrian

Thank you so much for your help it all worked nicely.

Re: Best way to create maps at different scale levels

AdrianWelsh — Fri, 27 May 2016 16:19:47 GMT

No problem! I am glad it worked out. If this solved the issue, please be sure mark the thread response as "correct".

Re: Best way to create maps at different scale levels

NavKa — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 17:58:10 GMT

Hello one last question. I am trying to set up different scale for different maps. i don't want best fit and was trying to add my scale in table and was trying to set up data driven scale but it is not working it doesn't change with the page. please share if you have any input.

Thanks!

Nav

Re: Best way to create maps at different scale levels

AdrianWelsh — Fri, 03 Jun 2016 04:41:31 GMT

Hi Nav,

Take a look at this link:

Creating Data Driven Pages—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop

Scroll down to the section about data driven scale:

When using point features, if you want to use only one map scale for each page, choose the Center and Maintain Current Scale option. Then, after exiting the Setup Data Driven Pages dialog box, set the scale of the Detail Data Frame to the scale you want. If you want different scales for different point features, you need to use a field containing these values and select Data Driven Scale on the Extent tab and choose this field. You cannot use a layer from another data frame, another map document, or a stand-alone layer file (.lyr) as an index layer. The index layer must be a feature layer. You cannot use raster-based layers as the index layer.

I hope this segment is useful.

Well... maybe scroll down further:

Data Driven Scale

By choosing the Data Driven Scale option, the map scale of the detail data frame for each page in the Data Driven Pages series is data driven. Use the drop-down list to select an appropriate field containing the data you want to use to determine scale. The drop-down list is filtered to display applicable field types. These include short integer, long integer, float, and double.
When you specify a Data Driven Scale field, values from this field define the map scale of the detail data frame for each page in the Data Driven Pages series. If a value is null, Data Driven Pages uses the scale value of the previous page. Any fixed scale or a fixed extent associated with the detail data frame is ignored when Data Driven Pages are enabled.

There are other helpful resources in the document regarding scale, etc.

Re: Best way to create maps at different scale levels

NavKa — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 21:02:43 GMT

I was using this to set up scale but that didn't work for some reason. i did add all the values in table and joined it to the index layer but still the scale didn't change to the values. i did that manually.

Thanks for all your help!