Working with map documents - Overview


Summary
This topic provides an overview of working with map documents as a developer in ArcGIS Engine.

In this topic


About working with map documents

In ArcGIS, a map document is a file that contains one or more maps; one page layout; and the associated layers, tables, charts, and reports. Map document files have an .mxd extension. Map documents are the most common way to persist and distribute maps and other cartographic information for data.
Map documents can be accessed and opened by several different components in ArcGIS. The component chosen depends on the ArcGIS product and the situation. For an ArcGIS Engine developer, the way to access and modify a map document is through the MapControl, PageLayoutControl, or MapDocument class.

MapControl and PageLayoutControl

ArcGIS Engine provides a number of controls for embedding ArcGIS components in your application. The MapControl and PageLayoutControl work with map documents as a way to display documents and also provide update capabilities. For more information on working with these controls, see the following topics:

MapDocument

The MapDocument class reads and modifies commonly accessed properties of a map document. MapDocument gives a simplified form of the map document, as application-specific items are not accessible—updating the document drops these items from the document storage. Despite these limitations, MapDocument is useful for batch operations, low-level document access, and modification of simple map documents. For example, if you want to update data paths for multiple map document files, you can write an application to loop through the files, open them with MapDocument, update the contents, then save the document.
For more information on working with the map and page layout objects, see Working with the map and Working with PageLayout. These topics contain references to more detailed information for items, such as layers and elements.

MapReader

The MapReader class is a simplified form of MapDocument that provides read-only access to map document properties. Use this class when you want to read documents but not update them.
For more information on working with the map and page layout objects, see Working with the map and Working with PageLayout. These topics contain references to more detailed information for items, such as layers and elements.






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