The QGIS Map Composer allows you to combine a map with nonspatial elements that help enhance our understanding of the map. In this recipe, we'll create a basic map composition. A composition requires you to define the physical paper size and output format. Even a simple composition example such as this has over 20 lines of configuration options.
You will need to download the following zipped shapefile and extract it to your qgis_data
directory, to a subdirectory named hancock
:
https://geospatialpython.googlecode.com/svn/hancock.zip
You will also need to open the Python Console under the Plugins menu in QGIS. You can run this recipe in the console or wrap it in a script for the Script Runner plugin, using the template provided with the plugin.