Special Use the sample map as a guide for organizing your data layers. Change the default symbolization provided by ArcMap (left) using the organization scheme and Styles files in the map template to quickly transform the map (below). used to obtain specific effects, and some best practices to follow when using your own data with the map template. Some map templates are designed expressly for creating basemap services for ArcGIS Server. These map designs tend to use blues and greens and leave the darker and brighter colors for symbolizing the operational layers that will be placed on top. This is the same design used by ArcGIS online basemaps and facilitates the creation of mashups. Using these templates standardizes maps so they can be shared back to the GIS community on ArcGIS online. Making a Template Your Own Once you have become acquainted with the resources in the map template, you can start using it with your own data. Because map templates are quite versatile, what you do with them depends on the output you need (e.g., printed map, Web map, shared layers) and the data you have. While it is possible that you might be able to immediately begin working with your own data in the template, that will probably not be the case. From looking at the sample geodatabase, you can determine the similarities and differences between it and your data and the data schema used. You can decide how you might modify your data to better work with the map template. You might consider adding fields that mimic the template data structure as one way to accomplish this goal. However, this does not www.esri.com mean that you must completely redesign your data to conform to the sample geodatabase. When you are ready to start adding your data to a new map, let the map document in the map template be a guide to organizing your data into multiscale layers. Chances are that you will not need all the scale levels present in the map template, so just use those scales that make sense for your map. Set scale dependencies for those layers you do use. If you are publishing a map service, make sure those scales match your tiling scheme. Each of those scale levels will be used to create a map cache. With your data layers loaded and organized, the next step is to use the styles that came with the map template to quickly and correctly symbolize features. In ArcMap, choose Tools > Styles > Style References, click Add, and navigate to the Styles folder and choose the appropriate style for your layer. Now change the default symbolization provided by ArcMap using the Styles file just added to the document. This process involves nothing more than pointing and clicking to use the symbology that has already been devel- oped and refined for this map. Refer to the documentation for the map template for any additonal parameters, such as layer transparency, that need to be set and for information on techniques that can be employed, such as cartographic representation. Finally, apply the labels needed for your map. Click the Labels tab, click Label Styles, and scroll down to access the label styles that were included with the map template. Several map templates include both labeling and annotation versions of the map, so if annotation has already been created, it can be fine-tuned and used in the map. Refer to the map document that came with the template to note any strategies that were used to more clearly identify features such as using map classes. Conclusion You can see that applying the resources in the map template can significantly reduce the time (and consequently, the money) required to produce an effective, professional-looking map. You started with data and a default map and transformed it into a well-organized, appropriately symbolized and labeled map. ArcUser Summer 2010 45