1 Introduction

The display window

The display window displays the layers and graphic objects in the map document. It has
two views that you switch between: data view and layout view.

Data view shows you one data frame at a time, including the currently displayed layers in
that frame, along with any labels or graphic objects drawn inside the data frame. In data
view, the display window is the data framethe layers in the active data frame appear in
the window.

Layout view shows you all the data frames in the map document and their contents on a
layout page along with map elements youve created, such as titles, legends, and scalebars.
In layout view, the data frame is embedded on the pagethe frame itself is treated as a
graphic element, as reflected by the context menu for the data frame on the layout page. It
can be moved, resized, and so on.

Data View

Switch to Layout View from the View menu

Data view is mainly where you do map display, query, and editing. You set the scale and
map extent to control the geographic area thats displayed. You can interactively zoom in
and out and pan the data (you can also set the map scale explicitly, in the scale window).
You work with the contents of the data frame in ground units, such as feet or meters.

Layout view is where you compose page layouts for printing and publishing. You work
with the layout in page unitsusually inches or centimeters. Layout view activates
tools for navigating around the page, for adding standard map elements, such as legends
and scale bars, and for arranging the map data and map elements on the page. Simple
map elements, such as titles and neatlines, are associated with the map page. Other
map elements, such as legends and scalebars, are associated with a data frame and are
dynamicthey change to reflect the layers and the map scale displayed in the data frame.
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Using ArcGIS Desktop

When in layout
view, you
can add map
elements from
the Insert menu.

While in layout view you can still work with the data thats displayed in a data frame just
as you do in data viewzoom in and out, pan, turn layers on and off, change symbols, and
even edit the data.

Only one data frame is active at a time. The active data frame appears in bold in the table of
contents. When you add layers to the map theyre added to the active data frame. In layout
view, the active data frame is outlined with a dashed boxyou need to make a data frame
active before you can work with the data in the frame. To make a data frame active, click it
in layout view or right-click the data frame name in the table of contents and select Activate
from the context menu.

Active
data
frame

The active data frame is highlighted in bold in the table of

contents and outlined with a dashed line on the layout page.

Click the data frame on the page to make it

active, or right-click the data frame name and click
Activate.

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