Create Map Legend

Legend is a small box that indicate the meanings of different overlays (e.g. markers, paths, curves) and regions settings with captions. It includes a map legend key with color box, line or image and a legend text to describe this legend items.

• Generate legend items from existing overlays
• Create legend items manually
• Manage map legends
• Layout settings

You may follow our video tutorial on map legends.

Generate legend items from existing overlays

It is handy to generate the legend items based on the marker icons or color settings of the overlays. The software supports generation of legend items from these settings of the overlays:

• List of Markers
• List of Country/State/Region Color Setting
• List of Heat Map Color Setting (Discrete Range Color Type Only)
• List of Paths/Curves Color Setting
• List of Pie Chart Color Setting
• List of Rectangle/Polygon Color Setting

Follow the steps below to generate the legend items automatically.

1. Make sure that you are in Edit Mode. Click the Edit Mode button below the horizontal toolbar if you are not.
2. Click the Add Map Legends button on the vertical toolbar.
3. In the Generate Legend Items dialog, choose your desired list of legend items based on your choice of overlays.
4. The legend items are added automatically under List of Legend Items box on the Map Legend Properties Panel. There is a default legend item Map Legend shown to the top of the list.
5. You can further manage the legend items by changing their order and their appearance in the respective section of this guide. If you want to generate a different set of legends automatically from the overlays, click the Wizard button above the List of Legend Items box and repeat step 3 from above.

Create legend items manually

1. Make sure that you are in Edit Mode. Click the Edit Mode button below the horizontal toolbar if you are not.
2. Click the Add Map Legends button on the vertical toolbar.
3. In the Generate Legend Items dialog, click Cancel so that you can create the legend items manually.
4. There is a default legend item Map Legend shown under List of Legend Items box on the Map Legend Properties Panel. You can use the Add Legend Items button to add new legend items to the list.
5. You can further manage the legend items by changing their order and their appearance in the respective section of this guide. If you want to generate a different set of legends automatically from the overlays, click the Wizard button above the List of Legend Items box and follow this section of the guide.

Manage map legends

You can change the properties of each map legend in the following ways.

• Click the Select button on the vertical toolbar, and choose the legend you want to change.
• Expand the Map Legends Panel to the right hand side and select the map legend from the list.

Here is the complete list of Map Legend Properties.

Properties	Description
Layout Settings	Change the look and feel of this map legend. Please follow the Layout settings section of the guide for details.
Category ID	Assign the map legend to a category.
List of Legend Items
Wizard	Call up the Generate Legend Items dialog to generate the list of legend items based on the overlays on the map. Please follow the Generate legend items from existing overlays section of the guide for the steps.
Add Legend Item	Add a new legend item into the list.
Remove Legend Item	Remove a legend item from the list.
Move Item Up/Down	Arrange the legend items in your desired order.
Legend Item Details
Description	The name of the legend item that appears in the list of legends on the map. You can select each legend item on the list to change their names.
Symbol	The symbol of the legend item that appears in the list of legends on the map. You can select each legend item on the list to change their symbol. If you have chosen to generate the legend items automatically, the correct type of symbol is entered for you. Here is the list of symbol choices. Icon: Icons are generated from the list of markers on the map. You can further change the icon displayed by clicking the Select Icon box to the right hand side to change to your desired icon. Rectangle: Colored rectangles are generated from the list of colors from regional, heat map, pie chart color settings. You can further change it manually Line: Colored lines are generated from the list of colors from paths and curves. You can further change it manually None: Change the symbol to none if the legend item is a descriptive text and does not below to any overlays on the map. The default Map Legend item in the legend list belongs to this type.

Layout settings

You can change the look and feel of each map legend in the following ways.

1. • Click the Select button on the vertical toolbar, and choose the legend you want to change.
   • Expand the Map Legends Panel to the right hand side and select the map legend from the list.
2. In the Map Legend Properties Panel, click the Layout Settings button to open the setting dialog.

Here is the complete list of Layout Settings for map legends.

• Size
• Font
• Color and Opacity
• Border
• Shadow
• Position

Size

Items	Description
Legend
Padding	The space between the content of the legend and the legend border in pixels. You can enter your desired value or select from the drop down list.
Columns Per Row	The number of columns shown in the legend. You can enter your desired value or select from the drop down list.
Legend Icon
Width	Denote the width of the symbol.
Height	Denote the height of the symbol.
Legend Item
Width	The width of each legend item in pixels. You can enter your desired value here.

Font

• Fontface: Choose the typeface for the text.
• Size: Enter the size of the font.
• Color: Pick the color of the legend item

Color and Opacity

Change the background color and opacity of the legend box.

• Color: Choose the background color of the legend box.
• Opacity: Change the opacity of the legend box by entering a number from 0 - 100. 0 (Zero) means fully transparent and 100 means fully opaque.

Border

Customize the border of the infobox with the legend box.

• Style: We provide these line styles: solid, dashed and dotted. You can change to none if you don't need the borders.
• Width: Enter the width in pixel or select the width you want from the drop down menu.
• Color: Change the color of the legend box borders.
• Radius: Change the roundness of the corners of the legend box.

Shadow

Customize the shadow of the legend box with the following options.

Item	Description
X-offset	The legend box shadow will move horizontally in the number of pixels specified in the box. Positive values move the shadow to the right, while negative values move the shadow to the left.
Y-offset	The legend box shadow will move vertically in the number of pixels specified in the box. Positive values move the shadow to the bottom, while negative values move the shadow to the top.
Blur Radius	The strength of the blur effect around the legend box.
Spread Radius	Width of the legend box shadow.
Color	Color of the legend box shadow.
Inner Shadow	Check this box if you want to display the shadow within the border of the legend box.

Position

There are 9 choices for the position of the legend box shown anchored on the map.

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