Loose Ends Lab - Part 1 and 2

Process Summary Details Part I

There isn’t much for me to write for this Process Summary but it was an interesting and informative exercise.

1)     The information on the Table of Contents was really good because I often just played around until I got it to do or show what I wanted it to, now I have more of an idea what each TOC view does and how to use it better, particularly the ‘View by Order’ where you can move the layers around and will handle the Layer Groups.  Knowing that ‘View by Source’ shows the non-spatial data was enlightening, as well.

2)     Learning how to insert my own graph and to play with the settings was pretty cool…I am looking forward to playing with that more.  Remembering to set up the basics in the View/Graphs/Create then going back into Advanced Properties is great and will save much frustration.

3)     I have been wondering how to use the “dynamic texts” function so this was very useful.  I can see where different codes can get pretty complicated but knowing the basics like date formatting is very useful.

Process Summary Details Part II

Again, there is not much to add to the Process Summary Details, however, the second Loose Ends Lab showed some interesting tools, particularly how to share files while not losing data needed for the functioning of the map.

1)     I followed the directions and opened up the files, learning how to use the Repair Data Source to find the source folder and also seeing what a correctly saved map document looks like.  This will be very handy when sharing files in my office.

2)     Knowing that Data Driven Pages need to be exported as a PDF seems like it will be good necessary information for the future.

3)     I look forward to working with these tools more.