Bob,
I, too, have been unhappy with the outcomes with shaded fills. I
suspect that at least part of it is on the Acrobat side, because I
seemed to get different results with different versions of Acrobat
(better with 5.0 than with 6.0 and above).
Regarding adding a company logo to your layouts, may I recommend
"Insert Image.rsc" available in the files area? It's free (though
donations are always welcome), and it lets you insert the image at a
specified size rather than having to drag the "right" sized rectangle.
If you always place the image at a particular spot, you can modify the
code to have it go there by default. Otherwise, you can just move it
from the (semi-)random place I picked.
Regarding placing the map's filename in a layout, try this code:
map_file = GetMapFile()
layout_name = GetLayout()
dim anno_loc[2]
anno_loc[1] = coord(28800, 72000)
anno_loc[2] = coord(28801, 72001)
text_color = ColorRGB(0,0,0)
text_font = "Arial|8"
titleid = AddAnnotation( , "Text",{
{"Color",text_color},
{"Angle",0},
{"Font",text_font},
{"Location", anno_loc},
{"Text", map_file}})
Note that it will only work if you have an active layout, the map file
in question is open, and the map file has been saved (otherwise, there
is no filename to get in the 1st line). You can adjust the color by
changing the values in ColorRGB() the font in the text_font line. You
can also experiment with placement on the page by changing the values
in anno_loc[1] (anno_loc[2] values don't seem to make any difference,
so long as they are larger than anno_loc[1]).
The other issues you mention (placement of legend, placement of north
arrow, manual labels) you mention can also be addressed with the DK...
--- In [email protected], Map Boy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> While most of this is way over my head, I do have a couple comments:
>
> One problem I have with pdfs in Maptitude, no matter what my pdf
print driver is, is that when using an area layer, I can only use a
solid fill in my map. If you use any type of a shaded fill, the pdf
output is horrible, usually a solid black blob in the pdf document.
I'm not sure if this is a pdf bug or a Maptitude bug. I'm leaning
towards Maptitude, as a shaded fill doesn't work when printing to my
plotter (comes out a solid black blob). My point is that I usually
have to either print the map then scan it (losing quality), or cut
and paste into something like PowerPoint.
>
> Secondly, with legends, I don't believe there is one default
location for a legend. For some of my maps the bottom left hand
corner works, but for another map, I may need to see this area, so I
locate the legend in a top corner, or bottom right. I usally do put
the legend in a corner though, so maybe there could be an option to
select a particlular corner. In addition, my company logo is ussually
included in my legend, as well as a path name for future reference.
>
> Thirdly, note that when converting automatic labels to manual,
this also includes any freeway symbols or automatic frames that
includes text. Plus, once you turn automatic labels back on, the
manual labels stay, and a whole new layer of automatic lables is
created, again, overlapping the manual labels. Could get ugly.
>
> Also, a bit off the subject, but I would love it if Maptitude
could include a default (or automatic placement) of a north arrow or
direction sysmbol in the legend. I am always having to do this as a
multiple step process, and it just seems like this could be automated.
I realize this might be something GISDK could do, but it seems like
a feature the Maptitude folks could add to the legend.
>
> Finally, as an editoral perspective, using layouts in Maptitude is
clearly the weakest link in the program. From what I've read, this
pdf layering thing is done automatically in ArcGIS. Caliper needs to
incorporate this feature in a new release as soon as possible, in
addition to the numerous bug fixes needed when working with layouts.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Bob
>
>
>
> Josh Rosenthal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Moshe,
>
> 1) Agreed on dispensing with the picklist, although, in all honesty,
a robust version of the code should have it, as the goal for any such
snippet is to minimize the effort involved in going from a dataset to
the final product, and having to remove layers from a file has the
potential to get repetitive. That said, I'm all for it not being
around for now. Mike, Larry, you've both got immediate applications
for this code. Any thoughts?
>
> 2) Interesting, but I suspect we'll need the printer preset for the
layout to work anyway (try seeing what happens when you make a layout
with a paper printer, draw a view, and change the printer to PDF
Creator. I always get a strange shift in map view location to be
offcenter, even if the paper size of my printer matches the size for
the PDF printer). Thus, if we can require that as part of our spec
for the user when building a template, and then directly use the
printer from there, this would be ideal.
>
> 3) I'm actually not sure why we need to create separate layouts.
Can we not set the map view to our map, and refresh it
programmatically, or is there some other reason I'm missing?
>
> 4) I like the solution of the legend as a separate layer. In
Acrobat you can set the layer to always display, or make it part of
the base layer, etc. Should be nice.
>
> 4.5) Text & Searchable Text. Sadly, before I had to leave my
maptitude/acrobat setup on friday I didn't have time to explore this
completely. Here is what I have.
>
> One of the great joys of PDFs is that text is searchable, and as
such, that labels, if converted to text, are also searchable.
Unfortunately, when testing, I was unable to get automatic labels into
the PDF (this may have been my system which was in desperate need of a
reboot towards the end of the day), and only could get searchable
labels by producing a series of manual labels, turning off the layer,
refreshing the layout (now showing only the labels), and printing to
PDF. This AnnotationLayer PDF, once brought into Acrobat, was
searched when one uses the find function in Acrobat. You will not
see this behaviour in the current Proof of Concept uploaded as that
was based on PNGs, rather than directly being output to PDFs. Note
that if someone wants to have some annotations searchable, and others
not searchable (eg: don't search in the boilerplates), the solution is
to have some be images, and others text.
>
> Problems with Searchable Text.
> a) Does it work for Automatic labels? If it does, it seriously
raises question if what follows is necessary. I still think it'd be
nice, but maybe not necessary. Certainly for zoom controlled
annotations we'll need them in separate layers. I suppose if it does
work, the ideal would be to have a variable that would say whether or
not to separate annotations from layers or not.
> b) In any case, in theory, one wants searchable text to be in its
own separate layer.
> Annotations are great, but they can easily hide data. Especially if
multiple layers have annotations.Thus... I guess...
>
> Turn on layer,
> show labels
>
> (if necessary?... should be able to spec that if you want a
label layer, create them as part of your base map and have them on,
thus, we check to see if we should create labels by seeing if they're
already there),
>
> convert to graphics,
> turn off layer,
>
> refresh layout,
>
> print,
>
> delete all graphics in map
>
> turn on layer,
>
> turn off labels (if necessary?),
> refresh layout,
> print,
> turn off layer,
>
> rinse repeat. Every layer (or every layer with labels) would thus
get a separate annotation PDF produced.
> c) Acrobat Search pans, not zooms. This is an ugly problem, even in
a full GIS. What should it zoom to? This can be dealt with by using
bookmarks in Acrobat rather than encouraging searching, but this is
only a partial solution. Not a maptitude problem, in any case. A
better zooming solution may be the key. The ideal of course, would be
a way to use Acrobat (which does know font size), to display at font
size rather than zooming. Not quite sure how that is accomplished
though.
>
> 5) Legends... I'm not quite clear on how determining legend
placement will work. How can it be in a template, if the user cannot
have it in a template because there is no filled map?
>
> I do like the line of thinking with the layout naming scheme and the
legend logic (and layer order placement). Should make potential
scripting easier for the other side of things. Very nice. Also, I'm
sure you're right about PDF Creator, but as you pointed out, Acrobat
can do this, and for the moment we are assuming users will have
acrobat handy (although, using iText would allow this to function
without a copy of Acrobat... which would mean Maptitude layered PDF
support using only maptitude and free products).
>
> In any case, very cool.
>
> Thanks a lot,
> Josh
>
>
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