The section continues from Create Legend: Setting Legend Default Properties (Step 2).
When creating a map legend, you have the option to specify for each map layer's legend a unique title, subtitle, and the style for symbols and labels in the Frame Properties screen of the Create Legend wizard. The Legend Frames group on the left displays all the frames selected in the Choose Layers screen of the wizard. Each frame corresponds to a map layer. Select a frame from the list (you can only select one frame at a time) to see the frame's default attribute settings in the boxes on the right. Notice that the defaults used are the settings from the previous screen of the wizard. The hash (#) character from the default settings is replaced with the name of the layer.
The Title and Subtitle properties are available for all layers. Other properties are made available depending on the layer format.
To select attributes for a legend frame, select it from the Legend Frames list and then review the following before clicking Finish to create the legend.
Select Titles
Type in a new title or subtitle, or leave these blank to use the defaults from the previous screen.
Filter Raster Color Samples to a Maximum Number of Entries
The Filter panel displays when creating a legend for a raster layer. This sets the number of legend rows in the raster legend. The default value is 100. You can select an existing value in the list or enter a new value between 1 and 1600. If the total number of rows for a raster legend is 100, but the maximum number of entries is set to 20, then only 20 colors display in the raster legend frame. If the number of colors is less than the filter amount, then all colors are included. To change the legend, you must re–create it with a new Max Entries value.
Select how to Display Legend Symbols
The legend styles are the symbols used in the legend to identify the map features. Each type of object: point, line, or region displays its own symbol in the legend. Point objects are represented by point symbols, line objects by lines, and region objects by polygons. There is also support for multipoint and collection objects in the cartographic legend feature. Multipoint objects display as a point symbol in the legend. A collection object displays a combination of symbols indicating the different object types it contains. You can display your legend symbols according to:
- Select map catalog to retrieve the default styles for the selected legend frame from the map catalog. This is the default option for live tables, but is disabled for other types of tables. Use this option when you are concerned with performance. Retrieving map styles from live tables on a remote database can take a long time, but retrieving a default style from the map catalog can be significantly faster. Remember that styles in the map catalog may not be as visually descriptive as the other options.
- Select unique map styles to retrieve all unique object styles for the table for a visually appealing legend. This option is selected by default when the legend frame is not a live access table. (For extremely large tables, this option can take longer than the first option.)
- Select unique values in a column to retrieve the styles associated with the values saved in a particular column in the table for a visually appealing legend. A legend symbol displays for each unique value in the selected column. This creates multiple symbols of the same type. If you are creating a legend based on the AUS_CAPS cities using the setups table and you select the column PLACE_NAME, a symbol for each capital city will display. You can then label each symbol according to PLACE_NAME, or any other column, to have the column value display next to each symbol. (For extremely large tables, this option can take longer than the first option.)
Select how to Label Legend Symbols
You can label your legend symbols in the following ways:
- Keep the default selection of <Style Name> in the Label styles with drop-down list to use the style name indicated in step 2 of the Create Legend wizard (described under Create Legend: Setting Legend Default Properties (Step 2)).
- Select a column from the Label styles with drop-down list. This uses the information in the column for the style labels.
More Advanced Options
Provide more description using unique column values from your table (in a column). The column can be any column in the table, or it can be one that you create specifically for this purpose. You can then write your own feature descriptions for each item in the table. To perform a join to add a temporary column from another table that you can use for your feature descriptions, see Creating a Legend with Joined Information.
To create a label based on a value derived from your table using an expression, see Using an Expression to Customize Legend Label Text.
For more control over legend frame defaults for a map layer, see Saving Legend Attributes to Metadata.
See Also: