Resizing the map is a similar task to resizing the key.

We start by selecting the map using the Selection Pane.

Now we choose Drawing → Format → Size and make sure we have the Size tab selected. When resizing maps it is important to maintain their aspect ratio. We can do this by selecting the Lock Aspect Ratio option in the Size tab. In this example we are going to resize the map to 75%. This is approximately the size required to allow enough space to the right of the map for the keys.

After resizing the map, you will notice than most map objects have rescaled correctly and in proportion. The exception is text, which retains it's font and so is trying to take up as much room as it did before. This often leads to untidy looking text items, sometimes with word-wraps.

In the map above the placenames like Leeds are particularly noticeable, but if you look closer you will see that all of the sector labels are also wrapped. We can help to improve the look of our map, by making the text smaller. Unfortunately there isn't a way of making all of the text 75% smaller, and so we will have to spend a little time getting the fonts of different objects right. The most difficult text to select is the sector labels as there are most of these, and so we will start with those.

The first step is to ungroup the map. Select the map group (in the Selection Pane) and choose Ungroup from the Drawing → Arrange menu.

In the Selection Pane we can now see what Groups and Objects make up the map.

Reading through these groups you will find one called Tile Labels. We need to select just the Tile Labels (click anywhere on the open map to deselect all objects, then reselect only the Tile Labels object). Then on the Drawing → Home tab use the Font menu to amend the font.

We can see in this example the font size is listed as 7. We know that the font needs to be made smaller, and we know that it needs to be approximately 75% smaller, so we will try with 5pt (0.75 x 7 is a little more than 5). Note that you can type font sizes into the box that are smaller than you can pick from the drop down list.

Going back to the map, we can see that our tile labels now look much better, but problems with placenames still exist.

We now need to go through the various levels of placenames, and perform a similar operation. Each placename level has it's own font style, so we need to make sure we do them all.

Next select Cities and in Drawing → Home tab use the Font menu to amend the font from 10 to 7 this means that our city text labels (Leeds, Bradford, Kingston upon Hull in this example) now fit correctly again.

We repeat this process for each of the levels of place name.

Finally we regroup the map, as we don't want to leave bits behind if we start moving it around. With an object from the map group selected (for example the last level of placename label that you changed), choose Regroup from the Draw menu. Go back to the Selection Pane and rename the group to map. 

Return to PowerPoint 2007 Help...

Return to Contents page...