Maptitude Help / Creating Maps / Creating a Map

Creating a Map

There are several ways that you create a new map in your Maptitude workspace:

• Use Create-a-Map Wizard. Maptitude automatically chooses the appropriate geographic data files to display any location of your choice and gives you the option to attach your own data to the map.
• Use the Map Librarian to open an existing map for a location of your choice.
• Manually choose one or more geographic files. Maptitude opens a new map that displays only the files that you have chosen.
• Duplicating an open map.
• Combining existing maps.

Maptitude comes with dozens of different geographic files. Most are included in the maps you create with Create-a-Map Wizard and the Map Librarian. For more information on geographic files that come with Maptitude, see Maptitude Data Files. For more help on geographic files that come with your installed Country Package, choose Help>Regional Data Help>(Country Package Name).

Using Create-a-Map Wizard™

Create-a-Map Wizard provides a fast, easy way to create a new map. All you need to do is choose whether to create a map of some location or a map of your own data, answer a few simple questions, and Maptitude will create a map for you automatically.

Create-a-Map Wizard lets you create maps in several different ways:

A map of New York created using the country map option (left) and a density analysis map of customer data created using the Map of My Own Data option (right)

NOTE: Create-a-Map Wizard uses your region data to assemble maps. If you have more than one region installed, you can use the Region Manager to specify the region to use. See Using the Region Manager for more information.

For a video tutorial see: (Internet connection required) • Creating a General Purpose Overview Map with Maptitude • Creating a Maptitude Map Using Your Own Data • Creating Territories in Maptitude

To Use Create-a-Map Wizard to Map Your Data

1. There are several ways to map your data with Create-a-Map Wizard depending on whether or not you have a workspace open and whether or not you want to map your data to an open map or a new map. Make choices as follows:

2. Verify that Maptitude chose the correct address, city, state, province, postal code, country, and/or coordinate fields from those present in your file and click Next.

Create-a-Map Wizard takes over from there, walking you step by step through the process of creating a new map starting with choosing what kind of map you want to create. See Mapping My Own Data for more details on using Create-a-Map Wizard to map your own data.

To Use Create-a-Map Wizard to Create a Country Map

1. There are several ways to create a country map with Create-a-Map Wizard depending on whether or not you have a workspace open. Make choices as follows:

2. Choose whether you want the map to display the entire country, a state, a city, a postal code, etc. from the scroll list and if necessary enter any other details.
3. Click Finish.

Create-a-Map Wizard displays a map of the specified location with the appropriate layers using the geographic data included in your Country Package.

To Use Create-a-Map Wizard to Create Territories

1. There are several ways to create territories with Create-a-Map Wizard depending on whether or not you have a workspace open. Make choices as follows:

2. Maptitude displays the Territory Wizard.

See Creating Territories for information on the Territory Wizard.

Using the Map Librarian

For Country Packages that include demographic data, Maptitude includes several pre-made demographic maps that you can display at any scale and for any location. These maps are organized into categories and can be opened with bookmarks. A map category can be set with a range of scales (autoscale range) that is best for displaying the maps in the category. Bookmarks that will create maps within that range of scales have a } symbol next to them, other bookmarks have a | symbol. If a category does not have an autoscale range, all of the bookmarks will have a } symbol. For more information on bookmarks, see Saving and Using Bookmarks.

To Open Maps with the Map Librarian

1. Choose Map>Demographic Map Librarian to display the Map Librarian dialog box, or choose File>New Workspace or click  on the Standard toolbar to display the Home dialog box, choose New demographic map, and click OK.
2. Choose a Map Category.
3. Choose one or more maps that you want to open.
4. Choose a bookmark or choose Other Location to specify the area to display.

5. Choose how to open the maps as follows:

6. Click OK. If you chose Other Location specify a location and click OK.

Maptitude opens the maps you have chosen. The location of the maps is based on the bookmark.

Duplicating a Map

You can quickly make a duplicate of the current map with the Map>Duplicate command. All of the settings, except the map title, are identical to those in the original map. You can then make changes, such as having different themes or additional layers, and then save this new map.

To Duplicate a Map

1. Choose the map you want to duplicate by clicking on the map window or choosing it from the Window menu.
2. Choose Map>Duplicate.

Maptitude duplicates the map, and makes the new map the current map.

Combining Existing Maps

You can create a new map by mixing and matching the layers that appear in your other maps.

To Combine Existing Maps

1. Open two or more maps. The extent of the new map will match the extent of the map that is the current map.
2. Choose Map>Combine. Maptitude displays the Choose Layers to Combine dialog box.

3. Choose which of the available layers in the open maps to include in the new map as follows:

4. If you want to specify a title for the new map, click Title, enter a title in the edit box, and click OK.
5. Click OK.

Maptitude creates a new map with the layers you chose and with the extent of the map that was cur­rent.

Creating a Map by Opening Geographic Files

When you open one or more geographic files, Maptitude creates a new map and displays features from the files as layers in the map. You can choose whether to display the layers on a default map using additional layers from your Country Package or in a new map window containing just the geographic files that you choose to open.

TIP: Maptitude supports many other geographic file formats other than the ones provided in your Country Package. See Using Other Geographic File Formats for more information.

To Create a Map by Opening Geographic Files

1. Choose File>Open or click on the Standard toolbar, or right-click anywhere inside the Map­titude frame except on a window and choose Open. Maptitude displays the File Open dialog box.
2. Choose Geographic File as the file type.

3. Choose one or more geographic files.
4. Check the Open as read-only box to protect the data from any changes.
5. Check the Open for exclusive access box to prevent others from opening the file at the same time.
6. Check the Add to Map box if you want to add the geographic files to the current working map, or if no maps are open, to open a default map for your Country Package with the geographic files you chose. Uncheck the box to open a map that contains only the geographic file(s) you chose.
7. Click Open.

Maptitude creates a new map showing features from the file(s) you have chosen.

For more information on read-only and exclusive access, see Sharing Maptitude Data Files.

NOTE: By default the Add to Map option is chosen. You can change this default behavior by choosing Edit>Preferences and unchecking the Add them to a default/existing map box on the Map tab.

 

Interrupting the Drawing of a Map

You can stop a layer or map from drawing before it is done using the buttons on the status bar.

To Stop a Map from Drawing

1. Click on the Maptitude status bar or press the ESC key on your keyboard.

 

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