How to resize states, countries, etc...in arcmap 10.1

[DerrickSailer]

Here is the problem, I am trying to resize different states, provinces and countries and still keep everything as a shapefile so it can be used in another online mapping program. I am basically trying to build a cartogram in ArcMap and all I can seem to find are issues. Easiest route is to take it outside of Arc and just modify it by hand in something like illustrator but that doesnt help because as I stated it has to be in .shp format. I have looked at other forums and there is apparently a scale tool in earlier versions of ArcMap but someone thought it would be a good idea to leave it out of 10.1, I have tried converting it to a graphic amongst other things but I still dont think that would help because it needs to be a .shp. I have about 10-15 different sizes I want to use and Im starting to think I will have to use an external cartogram builder, which is a last resort.  

Thanks,
Derrick

[JoshWhite]

I'm not completely sure I understand what you are trying to accomplish.  Are you trying to fit a large area onto a small sheet of paper?  In that case, just zoom out.  The scale of a shp doesn't matter, it can be manipulated in ArcMap regardless of the version you are using.

[Robert_LeClair]

Derrick - I've yet to find anything within ArcGIS that creates cartograms, but I did find ScapeToad (free) that uses shapefiles as input/output. I haven't used it myself but it would seem to address your workflow.

Regards,

Robert LeClair
Esri-Denver

[DavidWilliams]

Remember Derrick you can export graphics to features (shapefiles) by right clicking on Layers in your TOC and selecting

"Convert Graphics to Features"

also ETGeoWizards has a Scale Shapes basic function which is free to use

see:

http://www.ian-ko.com/ET_GeoWizards/gw_NoRestrictions.htm

and:

http://www.ian-ko.com/ET_GeoWizards/UserGuide/scaleShapes.htm

just be careful not to go beyond the bounding box of the data

[JoshWhite]

Derrick,
What are cartograms used for?

[DerrickSailer]

Thanks all,

I was already under the impression that it couldnt be done and scapetoad was my next option. It works okay for anyone planning on using it, I have only used it once and as far as I can tell it only outputs one style of cartogram, hopefully in the future they will have more outputs. I already had gone through the steps of converting to graphic before bringing my question in front of the forum, but again thank you for the response and trying to help, much appreciated. For KSJosh, look up some cartograms online as its fairly hard to describe and there are so many different ways to do them. It is meant to be a quick reference almost, the most prominant futures are usually the largest or less warped and the less prominent are usually smaller or warped to the point they are unreadable.

[JoshWhite]

Ok, so for example, you wanted to show the distribution of population for each state.  So a state like Wyoming would be quite small and distorted and a State like California would be quite large and perhaps less distorted from reality.  I guess that makes sense, just not something I have a use case for.