Hi All, I have a "solution" to my problem.
Thank you to David, Kathy & Woody. Woody, suggested that I used the table - which I will do. Kathy offered to try the symbol for me. David sent me a detailed description of Symbol types and how they work. The .BMP I had built from MI was about 64*32 pixels - bigger than the standarad 32*32 allowed in Custom Symbols. I had assumed before reading David's notes that as long as the thing was smaller than 256kb it would be OK. Wrong. Just on spec I changed the attribute of the bmp to Black & White. This was not a problem as the arrow and text was all Black & white anyway. Lo and behold it became visible in Options~Symbol Style~Custom Symbols. (only after restarting MI. Apparently MI builds its list of Custom Symbols on start up). The down side is my arrow is too detailed to be viewed properly as a symbol (the magnetic declination number just couldn't be read). So... we open it as a table and drop it into a map frame on the layout - woody's solution. Most of David's email follows :- Thanx again folks. Cheers, Guy Maybe MapInfo's rather confusing "custom symbol" jargon is not helping you? Firstly what is a "Symbol"? ------------------------------------ A symbol is a map object created by the Symbol tool in the Mapinfo Pro Drawing toolbar. Its map coordinates are a simple x,y pair. What kind of symbols are there? --------------------------------------------- There are three kinds: Custom Symbols (aka Custom BitMap symbols) MapInfo 3.0 Compatible Symbols (aka Vector symbols) TrueType Font Symbols You can see how to select each kind by looking at MapInfo's Options>SymbolStyle dialog. The first entry in this dialog's Font list is "Custom Symbols" - that's "kind 1". The second entry in the list is "MapInfo 3.0 Compatible" - that's "kind 2". All the remaining entries "MapInfo Arrows...Wingdings" are TrueType Font Symbol sets "kind 3". The there kinds all have different properties. For example Custom Bitmap symbols are multi-colored but have jagged edges while TTF Symbols are monochrome but can be rotated and are smooth at any scale. How are each kind defined? ----------------------------------------- Custom symbols are defined by individual 32 x 32 x 16-color BMP files in a special MapInfo folder called ...\CustSymb. MapInfo 3.0 compatible symbols are defined programatically inside MapInfo Pro. TTF symbols are defined by TTF files in your Windows\Font directory. Note that not all TTF files are symbol files. For example "Arial" is not but "MapInfo Cartographic" is. The latter has a special "symbol" property in its file header. How do you create your own Custom bitmap symbols ? ------------------------------------------------------- You can create them using Microsoft Paint or PinatShop Pro. For example, using Windows Explorer, search for the existing MapInfo bitmap symbol ambu1-32.bmp. On my computer it is c:\program files\mapinfo\professional\custsymb\ambu1-32.bmp. Double click to open it in Paint. Color the ambulance white instead of the default gray. Save a copy in the same directory as ambu2-32.bmp. Now launch MapInfo Pro, execute Options>Symbol Style, pick "custom symbols" as the Font and click the dropdown button on the Symbols combo box. The white ambulance symbol will now be present beside the original gray one. How do you create your own MapInfo 3.0 Compatible symbols ? ------------------------------------------------------- You cant! What you see is what you get. How do you create your own TrueType Font symbols ? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------- You need to obtain a third-party "Font Foundry" program to do this. Search MAPINFO-L archives for the many messages that have referred to this topic over the past few years. Recommendation ------------------------- It's easy to create your custom North Arrow as a custom bitmap symbol, but it will be a bit "chunky" because you are limited to a 32 x 32 pixel image. --------------------------------------------------------------------- List hosting provided by Directions Magazine | www.directionsmag.com | To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
