ArcGIS Software Simplifies Map Book Generation
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Smarter Than Your Average Element

Local position smart element for Sheet D08

After looking at the generated map page on page 10, you may notice that some map elements seem to behave intelligently. They automatically update themselves based upon what page in the map book is currently being displayed. The identifiers of the neighboring tiles that surround the data frame were added as part of the Map Series wizard. However, the title text was added after the map series was created. In addition to map title, there are smart elements for the map generation date and two options for showing the relative position of the current map (Local Position and Global Position). Full instructions for adding page specific elements into your layout are found in Map Book Generation.doc.

Getting Your Map Book Out There

Even though you may have created the world's most amazing map book in ArcMap, none of that matters if you can't distribute it. Never fear, we also built some tools for getting your maps out there, both as hard-copy plots and digital graphics files.

Global position smart element for Sheet D08

The Map Book Developer Sample allows printing and exporting of a single page, a set of pages, or the entire series. Both the Print and Export options are available by right-clicking on the Map Series title in the Map Book tab. You can limit the pages that are printed or exported in a number of ways--by specifying the page range in the dialog (for example, entering 1-4 would output just the first four pages) or by disabling pages interactively by clicking grid numbers. You can also use a tool that automatically disables grids based on scale or generated date (i.e., the date the grid was last edited).

About the Programmers (and Authors)

Any or all of the pages in a map book can be exported. The dialog box settings were used in conjunction with the disabled settings to export Sheet 5 (D08), the first page, as JPG file and save it on the D drive. Disabled pages are not printed or exported but they can still be viewed and edited.

The programmers who brought you the Map Book Developer Sample hope that a large portion of your immediate map book needs can be met with the tools provided. The architecture used (Visual Basic) also allows for significant embellishment, so please feel free to expand the functionality of the sample as you see fit. We won't be offended, we promise. The functionality provided by Map Book Developer Sample will be included in the core functionality of upcoming releases of ArcGIS.

Nathan Shephard, the principal author of this article, has a bachelor's degree in computer science (GIS) from Curtin University in Western Australia. He worked for three years with Esri Australia and has been in technical marketing with Esri Redlands since October 1999.

Melanie Baker holds a bachelor of science degree from the University of South Carolina at Columbia. She joined the Esri-Charlotte team in May 2000 and is currently a member of the professional services group.

Larry Young earned a master's degree in forestry from Duke University. He has been with Esri since 1989 in a variety of technical positions. Currently he is a technical marketing resource and a member of the Editor development team.

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