In this recipe, we will use the Print Composer Atlas functionality to automatically create a PDF map book with a series of maps.
To follow this recipe, load zipcodes_wake.shp and geology.shp from our sample data. In the following screenshots, the zipcodes_wake layer was styled with a simple white border, while the geology layer is styled with random colors.
The Print Composer Atlas feature will create one map for each feature in the so-called Coverage layer. In this recipe, the zipcodes layer will serve as a Coverage layer, and we will create one map for each zipcode feature:
Click on the New Print Composer button or press Ctrl + P to get started. You will be prompted to set a title for the new composer. This can be left empty if you want QGIS to generate a title automatically.
Click on the Add new map button and drag open a rectangle on the composer page to create a map item for the main map.
To activate the Atlas functionality, we...