Color Themes are a great method of comparing demographic data in different areas. Sometimes, however, the color theme might make points on a map harder to see; or you may want zip code borders to be visible after you’ve made a color theme on the county layer.
With Maptitude, changing the opacity of the color theme is easy and takes only a few short steps. Before you begin, make sure you have a color theme applied to a layer of the map. Then, follow the steps below to edit the theme’s transparency:
- Begin by right clicking on the layer that has the color theme and choosing Make Working Layer.
- Go to Map>Thematic Mapping>Color or click
- Click the Styles tab.
- Highlight the second row in the Choose a class list and click on the Style button.
- Use the Up and Down arrows to adjust the Fill Opacity; a Fill Opacity of 100 is completely solid, while 0 is completely transparent. If you are unsure of what to set the Opacity to, somewhere around 70-80 is usually a good starting point. When you’ve found a good Opacity, click OK.
- Now, with the second row still highlighted, click the Copy Pattern button, the opacity will be copied to the other colors.
- Click OK to apply the changes and close the Color Theme window.