Book Image

QGIS By Example

By : Daria Svidzinska
Book Image

QGIS By Example

By: Daria Svidzinska

Overview of this book

If you are a beginner or an intermediate GIS user, this book is for you. It is ideal for practitioners, data analysts, and application developers who have very little or no familiarity with geospatial data and software.
Table of Contents (12 chapters)
11
Index

Adding and customizing a legend


A legend is a necessary element in any map. It provides explanations of the layers' symbology and helps us read and understand the map. To add a legend, click on the Add a new legend button in the Composer Items toolbar, and drag the mouse arrow diagonally over the page while holding down the left mouse button. You will see a rectangle drawn on the page and a legend inside it. By default, all layers in the project will be included in the legend, so it may look too big to fit the layout. With the legend item selected, you can use the Item properties tab to customize its content and appearance. There are several legend-specific sections that should be discussed.

The Main properties section allows you to customize the following options:

  • Title: By default, the Legend title is used, but you can type any other text here, or leave the field empty to remove the title.

  • Title alignment: This can align the title to Left, Center, or Right.

  • Map: By default, there is only...