When your map is first opened in PowerPoint the key is positioned over the top right of the map, rather than to one side as in your browser. Normally there is some free space on your slide that will accomodate your key, without hiding important map details.

Maps can have multiple keys, and we will dicuss these in a bit more detail below, but for the simple map with only one key, often the easiest way to position it where you want is to drag it there with the mouse. If you find that this doesn't work as you expect, because either not enough, or too many things move, then it's time to start looking at how map items are grouped together. 

To make dragging collections of things about your map easier, there are several layers of grouped objects in every map. This is great when you want to move whole collections of things, but sometimes can be confusing when you only want part of a group to move. To illustrate this we are going to start with a map that has a newspaper catchment and a drivetime catchment, that overlap. In addition the map will show the readership penetration of the newspaper. As a result this map will have two keys, that are shown down the right side of the map.

This is a good example of a map that can be improved with a little work in PowerPoint. We notice that the readership penetration key slightly obscures some tiles towards the bottom right of the map. This might not matter to us, but if we try to drag this key, to a new location, both the catchment key and the readership penetration key move together.

If we deselect everything (click in an empty area away from the map), and click Select Multiple Objects, then we can start to see the structure than makes up the map.

If we check the keys option this selects the keys group on the map when we press OK. We can then ungroup the keys group from the Ungroup tool on the Draw menu.

If we go back, and click Select Multiple Objects again, we can see what has happened.

Here we can see that the keys group is made up of the catchmentkey group and the thematickey group. After Ungrouping, both of the groups are selected themselves. If we uncheck the catchmentkey tickbox and click okay, you will find that it is possible to move the thematickey (readership penetration) around the map without affecting the position of the catchment key. You can move objects either by dragging with your mouse, or with the cursor keys on your keyboard. The advantage of using the cursor keys is that you don't risk accidently changing your selection by clicking on something else.

A futher way of controlling the position of the key is to use the Format→Object dialog. With just the thematickey selected (using select multiple objects), we can choose Format→Object from the menu.

The Format Object dialog allows you to control very accurately the position of objects on the page, and because there is no clicking on the map, you again don't have the problem of accidentally selecting something different. This is particularly useful for positioning keys, as you will often want to position them in the corners of the page. So for example in the following image the key was positioned at 0.2cm from the page top and 0.2cm from the page top-left.

In this instance we still find that it is difficult to position the readership penetration key on the slide without it overlapping important map objects, so we might have to instead consider resizing it. 

Go to 'How do I re-size my key?'

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