1 Click Selection > Zoom To Selected Features. ArcMap zooms to the features selected.
Change the selection symbol
In addition to changing the color of selected features, you can change the symbol either for the entire map or for individual layers.
1 In the table of contents, right-click the Major U.S. Cities layer and click Properties.
2 Click the Selection tab and click the Symbol button.
3 Click Square 1, Dark Amethyst, and size 12 as the new selection symbol and click OK twice.
4 The cities will be displayed with the new selection symbol.
5 Clear the selected features and zoom to full map extent.
YOUR TURN
Zoom to Texas. Click the Select Features arrow and click Select by Lasso. Select multiple cities in the state of Texas. Clear the selected features.
In the table of contents, make Breast Cancer Deaths by County the only selectable layer. Select features for five counties in Texas, zoom to those selected features, and then clear the selection.
Save the map document
1 On the Menu bar, click File > Save As.
2 Save your map document as Tutorial2-5YourName.mxd to your Chapter2 folder in MyExercises. Do not close ArcMap.
Tutorial 2-6
Finding map features
The connection between GIS features and their attributes provides several ways to locate features in the map. In cases where you know what you’re looking for but don’t know its location, you can use the Find tool.
Use the Find tool
1 Zoom to full map extent and make all map layers selectable.
2 On the Tools toolbar, click the Find button .
3 In the Find dialog box, in the Find box, type Philadelphia; for In, select <All layers>; and for Search, select the “Find features that are similar to or contain the search string” check box.
4 Click Find. The results appear in the bottom section of the Find dialog box. Note that ArcMap finds both the city and the county of Philadelphia. Both these records were located because the software searches all visible layers. You can restrict the Find tool to a specific layer by using the In list seen in step 3.
5 Right-click the city name and click Zoom To.
The resulting map zooms to the city of Philadelphia.
6 Close the Find dialog box.
Save the map document
1 On the Menu bar, click File > Save As.
2 Save your map document as Tutorial2-6YourName.mxd to your Chapter2 folder in MyExercises. Do not close ArcMap.
Tutorial 2-7
Using an attribute table to select counties with high breast cancer rates
Each map layer has an associated feature attribute table that contains the data associated with every feature in the layer. Open the attribute table to explore the attributes for the layer on a map. The attribute table provides information you can use to query the data. In this section, you will use attribute tables to determine which US counties had the highest counts and rates of female breast cancer deaths.
Show the connection between layers and tables
1 Zoom to full map extent.
2 In the table of contents, click the List By Drawing Order button.
3 Right-click the Breast Cancer Deaths by County layer and click Open Attribute Table. The table, which contains one record for each county feature, appears. Each layer has this table, which contains one record per geographic feature.
4 Resize or move the Breast Cancer Deaths by County attribute table so that both the map and the table can be viewed simultaneously on the screen.
5 Click the record selector (gray box) at the far left of the table for the first county (Autauga, Alabama) to select that record. Notice that the county is also highlighted on the map.
6 Scroll to the right in the attribute table to see the breast cancer rates and counts for this county.
YOUR TURN
Click the record selector for various counties in the attribute table to highlight them on the map. Click various counties on the map to highlight them in the feature attribute table. Find the county where you live or one that is familiar to you. Select your county in the attribute table and see the county highlighted on the map. Clear your selected features when you are finished.
Dock the attribute table
In ArcGIS, you can move a window to a new location and dock it or make it stationary. When you move the attribute table window, blue targets appear representing the different locations where you can dock the window. You can drag the window to the target of your choice and drop it there to secure it.
1 Drag the attribute window by its title bar to a new location. You will see blue target arrows indicating where you can “drop” the attribute window. Pause over a target to get a preview of where the window will be located if you drop it on that target.
2 Drop the window on the target at the bottom of the screen. The attribute table appears at the bottom of the window, and the table of contents and the map are at the top of the screen.
YOUR TURN
Practice moving the attribute table to various locations on the screen. When you are finished, leave the table floating in the map document.
Move a field
Next you will move and sort fields in the feature attribute table. In particular, you will sort fields in descending order by the total deaths in each county, and then select the highest number of deaths for the entire United States or for a selected state.
1 On the Tools toolbar, click Clear Selected Features.
2 In the Breast Cancer Deaths by County table, click the column heading (known as the field name) of the STATE_NAME field, and then press and drag it to the left of the NAME2_ (county name) field.