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Annotating Maps

Updated

Annotations offer a way to highlight specific areas on the map and provide additional information about them. They remain fixed on the map so that they move appropriately when the user zooms, pans, or scrolls.

Types of Annotations

Social Explorer offers different kinds of annotations to enhance your map. These include:

  • Marker
  • Line
  • Freehand
  • Arrow
  • Polygon
  • Shape
  • Label
  • Hotspot
  • Image

Creating Annotations

To add an annotation to your map, follow these steps:

  1. In the Change data menu, click the menu button icon for more options.
  2. Select Annotate map.
  3. Select the annotation type that works best for you.

Different annotation types are added in slightly different ways. For example:

  • To add an arrow, freehand, shape, or hotspot, you need to draw the annotation on the map by clicking and dragging.
  • To add a marker, text label, or image, simply click anywhere on the map.
  • To add a line or polygon, click on the map to add each point, and double-click to finish drawing.

Customizing Annotations

Let’s go through all the annotation types and look at their customization options.

Arrow

Once you draw an arrow, you will get the arrow annotation menu. You can enter the name of the arrow, as well as tweak its width. There are two ways to tweak the width of the arrow: Enter the starting width in the Start field, and the ending width in the End field. If you use different values for these fields, the width of the arrow will gradually change from the bottom of the arrow towards the tip. You can also set the width of the arrow tip in the Tip field.

Or, use the sliders for each of the options, Start, End, and Tip, to tweak the width of the arrow and the arrow tip.

After setting the width, you can play around with the fill. By default, arrows in Social Explorer are filled in with black, but you can either disable the fill by unchecking the box or click on the circle to use a different color.

Another element of the arrow you can play around with is the stroke. This is a line around your annotation, and you can set it anywhere from none to extra thick by entering a value from 1 to 5 in the Width field or by using the slider. Click on the circle next to Border to change the color of the stroke.

And lastly, you can tweak the arrow’s opacity. The lower the opacity, the more see-through the arrow is.

Freehand Line

After drawing the freehand line, you can:

  • Drag the dots on the line to edit it.
  • Enter a name.
  • Adjust weight, color, and opacity.

Shape Drawing

For shapes, you can:

  • Set the title.
  • Enable or disable the fill and set a fill color.
  • Customize the stroke (outline) with options for weight, color, and opacity.

Hotspot

A hotspot marks an area of interest on the map. You can:

  • Set its title.
  • Customize the frame weight and color.
  • Adjust opacity.

Image

Social Explorer allows you to embed an image as an annotation. Once you select the location:

  • Set a title.
  • Upload the file.
  • Adjust rotation and opacity.
  • Resize by dragging a corner to maintain the original aspect ratio.

Place Marker

To place a marker (pin) on the map:

  • Set a title.
  • Enable Show title as label to make the title visible.
  • Customize position, size, and color of the title.
  • Choose from different icons, and adjust size, color, and opacity.
  • Click the icon next to the title to edit the icon.

Line

After drawing a line, you can:

  • Set a title.
  • Adjust weight, color, and opacity.

Polygon

A polygon has more customization options than a line:

  • Set a title.
  • Enable or disable the fill, and select a fill color.
  • Customize the stroke (outline) weight and color.
  • Adjust opacity.

Text

For text annotations, you can:

  • Edit the label text.
  • Adjust the size and color.
  • Add a halo (a color outline around the text) and customize:
    • Color
    • Width
    • Blur level
  • Adjust rotation and opacity.

Managing Annotations (Edit, Delete, Copy/Paste)

All your annotations are listed in the annotations menu on the left sidebar.

  • To edit an annotation, click on it in the sidebar and tweak the settings.
  • To delete an annotation, click the Delete button.
  • To delete multiple annotations, click Edit list, select them, and click Delete.
  • To copy/paste multiple annotations, use the More icon.

Customizing the Annotation Legend

To include a map legend:

  1. Enable Show in legend for each annotation.
  2. Click Legend at the bottom of the annotations list.
  3. Enter the title and click Done.
  4. To hide an annotation from the legend, uncheck its box (the annotation will still be visible on the map).

Exporting Annotations

You can also export your annotations in the form of GeoJSON or KML files. Click on the icon next to the Edit List option to export your annotations.

Save Search Results as Annotations

You can now directly save search results as annotations on Social Explorer maps. This new feature is especially useful for annotating border lines, which may be too difficult to draw by hand. Here’s how to do it:

  1. Type in your location of interest in the search box in the upper left corner of the screen.
  2. Select an entry.
  3. Click Save as annotation for your search result.
  4. Clicking the Save as annotation option automatically adds the border for your selected geography with a default line annotation style (a thin light blue outline).

Click View List in the search box to quickly access the Annotations menu and further style your annotations.

Note: Before selecting an entry from the search box, be sure to observe the entry’s geographical category listed in the light gray box next to the entry name. For any of the search results, see the gray box next to the entry name to be sure that you’ve picked the right entry.

 

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