Customizing data frames

About customizing data frames

In layout view, you see geographic data in a data frame on the virtual page. You can use the data frame to emphasize the geographic data on the map by adding a border, background, or drop shadow.

Adding a border to a data frame

1. Right-click the data frame in the table of contents and click Properties.
2. Click the Frame tab on the Data Frame Properties dialog box.
3. Click the Border drop-down arrow and choose a border symbol.
4. Click the Color drop-down arrow and choose a color.
5. Type an x and y gap to offset the border from the edge of the data frame.
6. Type a value for Rounding; this is the percentage to round the corners of the border.
7. Click OK.

Adding a background to a data frame

Setting a background can be very important if you are creating a map service that will be overlaid on top of other data. In such cases, you should explicitly set a data frame background color instead of leaving the default null background color. The map service will treat the background color as transparent, so avoid choosing a color found elsewhere in your map. To avoid white areas of your map becoming transparent, you can set the background color to near-white (example: RGB 254, 255, 255).

1. Right-click the data frame in the table of contents and click Properties.
2. Click the Frame tab on the Data Frame Properties dialog box.
3. Click the Background drop-down arrow and choose a background.
4. Click the Color drop-down arrow and choose a color.
5. Type an x and y gap to offset the border from the edge of the data frame.
6. Type a value for Rounding; this is the percentage to round the corners of the border.
7. Click OK.

Adding a drop shadow to a data frame

1. Click the data frame in the table of contents and click Properties.
2. Click the Frame tab on the Data Frame Properties dialog box.
3. Click the Drop Shadow drop-down arrow and choose a drop shadow.
4. Click the Color drop-down arrow and choose a color.
5. Type an x and y gap to offset the border from the edge of the data frame.
6. Type a value for Rounding; this is the percentage to round the corners of the border.
7. Click OK.