{"id":478,"date":"2014-04-07T03:24:29","date_gmt":"2014-04-07T03:24:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lincoln.ac.nz\/conversation\/gis\/?p=478"},"modified":"2014-04-07T03:24:29","modified_gmt":"2014-04-07T03:24:29","slug":"arcmap-menus-the-last-of-the-unsung-heroes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.lincoln.ac.nz\/gis\/arcmap-menus-the-last-of-the-unsung-heroes\/","title":{"rendered":"ArcMap Menus – The Last of the Unsung Heroes"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this post we’ll delve into the ArcMap Menus to see what they have to offer.<\/em><\/p>\n

For a few posts we’ve been looking at some of the basics of ArcMap, particularly the Menus and Toolbars:<\/p>\n

\"ToolsAndMenus\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In previous posts we’ve looked at the Standard<\/a> and Tools<\/a> toolbars. \u00a0For this view into the unsung heroes of ArcMap we’ll look at the all too often overlooked Menus at the top of the window:<\/p>\n

\"Menus\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Most of these are pretty self-explanatory and do similar things to what we’re used to in other applications. \u00a0Others are more specialised. \u00a0We’ll go through each menu by menu, noting that many of the things you can do under the menus can also be done from the Standard and Tools toolbars.<\/p>\n

First up, File:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"FileMenu\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Rather than go through each one, I’ll pick on the ones that are out of the ordinary. \u00a0New<\/strong> and Open<\/strong> allow you to open map documents. \u00a0The various Saves<\/strong> do what you would expect, except for Save As… which allows you to save map documents as previous versions of ArcMap. \u00a0I have had to save, say a 10.2 map document as a 9.3 when the person I was sending it to hadn’t upgraded to 10.2 yet.<\/p>\n

Share As<\/strong> will let you save your map as a map service<\/a> – we won’t focus on that just now as we’re not set up to let everyone publish to the server (yet).<\/p>\n

Add Data<\/strong> does just that with the option of adding data from the folders you have access to as well as some basemaps from ArcGIS.com and data from ArcGIS.com – more on that in another post.<\/p>\n

ArcGIS Online is the ESRI’s cloud-side access to data. \u00a0The makers of ArcGIS have increasingly been shifting to providing data and maps online, so if you have an account with ESRI, you can sign in search for and add data to your local map. \u00a0For using this on-campus, you do need to provide your LU username and password to get through the firewall. \u00a0Go to ArcCatalog > Customise menu > Connections.<\/p>\n

Another option of note is the Export Map <\/strong>button. \u00a0Clicking on this allows you so save you map in a variety of formats (e.g. PDF, JPG, SVG, etc). \u00a0From the Map View only the map is exported, but from the Layout View the whole layout is exported (legend, north arrow, etc). \u00a0This is a great way to share your final map product or to give yourself and image to insert into a Word or Powerpoint document.<\/p>\n

The Map Document Properties<\/strong> can be quite an important place to visit if you plan on shifting your data and map around from place to place, say from your desktop machine to a laptop. \u00a0One way to avoid the dreaded red exclamation mark is to go to the Map Document Properties and tick the wee “Store relative pathnames to data sources” box at the bottom. \u00a0All this means is that instead of looking for a layer somewhere like:<\/p>\n