Smash Neatlines

Neatlines? Who needs them! Ok, I've exposed my bias, but I understand sometimes you just might need (or want??) a neatline, for whatever reason. But if there's a neatline, by golly it's a great excuse to break the neatline. Here's how to make portions of your map spill over the edge of a neatline and look way cooler than if it was a nice obedient map that colored within the lines.
Check out some other social channels where I share how-to's and updates on random map adventures:
adventuresinmapping.com
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[@JohnNelsonMaps]

If you'd like to download the source ArcGIS Pro project from this video to reverse engineer, find it here: www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=4e526f0381cc4dfc9e58a9525834201c

[@Kirrel]

How do you manage to have an over eight minute video feel just like a couple of seconds . . . Great content, thanks for this

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

hey thanks Pim!

[@Sam-yu6ss]

Aaah that’s just beautiful! I love it when the neatlines are breached 🖌

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

yes! thanks Sam!

[@tonyjoffre2909]

I did not know you could add and change vertices to the map frame. Thank you!

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

I learned from Aubri Kinghorn

[@CartoRedux]

The Pro Layout QUEEN!

[@geologyforupsc2600]

I work in geological survey of india. Digitization of old reports was going and I found a lot of geological maps which extended the outer grid (didnt knew they were called neat lines). Those days maps were made on ammonia paper by draughtsman. The tender went to the lowest bidder and all the maps were digitized in CAD . Now I, the GIS geologist, always wanted to try the spilling over maps but didnt knew how or even what to search. I finally found this video somehow. Now will try to replicate it in ArcMap 10.8. Wish me luck

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

Ah wonderful!

[@ChipWeir-tb7qp]

you're amazing. I always have a feeling of awe at the powers of GIS after watching your vids. Thank you!

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

Thank you Chip!

[@applesauce_0743]

This is actually so awesome!

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

Thanks Evan!

[@nettibyrd7362]

I like to think of this as aggressive mapping!

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

maps unleashed!

[@ZorkoZerg]

Thank you John for showing us tricks of the trade yet again. I didn't try modifying vertices of map frame so far. Now I know enough to be dangerous.

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

it's a handy trick!

[@TheCrippledWerewolf]

I was trying understand "what a neatline is" because a proper definition using words is very difficult and when do you ever hear someone talking about maps. Poking fun at them immediately made me get the definition. Now I want to destory all my neatlines!

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

Down with the neatline!

[@pedroferreira6327]

So awesome! I love your videos, thanks for the tricks, big hug from brazil!

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

Thanks Pedro!

[@bertkraan2817]

Thank you John

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

You bet!

[@ChristopherNoakes]

I love the idea of using a secondary map frame to add paper texture to rest of the layout. Would this also "paper-texturize" other map surrounds, like a North Arrow?

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

Thanks! Unfortunately because the paper texture is part of the map, overlain items like north arrow, scale, title, and legend don’t get texturized

[@TheDMG45]

Clever trick, very helpful

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

great! hope it comes in handy.

[@davidnovak3072]

Hello dear John! Awesome video, I just sent it to one of our customers! What about video about complex neatlines or custom grids? :)

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

Thanks David! Yes I was also thinking this. Just have to come up with a crazy grid.

[@mlsauron]

8:33 new map and it's instantly old.

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

yeah! what's old is new.

[@lynncarlson2576]

Had no idea map frame vertices could be altered - thank you for this tip! Wondering though if the map frame vertices be changed to Bézier curves? I would guess not or you would have shown us….thinking that would help smooth them out. Maybe in a future release?

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

yes, they totally can!

[@lynncarlson6985]

@@JohnNelsonMaps I cannot find the way 😟

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

@@lynncarlson6985 it's the same was as when i do it in the video. mouse over a line segment and right-click, there is an option for line type, choose bezier curve. then the handles appear. it's for the line segment and not the vertex, that may be what's hard to find.

[@lynncarlson2576]

@@JohnNelsonMaps THANK you! An Aha Moment when hovering over the line segment, and not the vertex itself! THANK you!

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

@@lynncarlson2576 it took me a minute to realize that too!

[@CraigH999]

I am having trouble editing vertices on my "patches" map frame. I add some, and reshape without moving the contents, but inevitably there are a few that I can neither delete nor move without affecting the contents of the frame. It's driving me nuts! I just don't understand what I'm doing wrong at that point.

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

Yes it is a tricky process. The best way I found is to set some vertices at the maximum extent of the patch and leave those in place so that the map does not change position when placing other vertices.

[@CraigH999]

@@JohnNelsonMaps Ah yes okay it's suddenly clear to me now - I mean, I watched you demonstrate it, it should have been clear then too, but there was just something I was missing. Thanks again, John!

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

@@CraigH999 it took me a while to get comfortable with it. i regretted not demonstrating that part more clearly.

[@Ahmedali_-qd9eg]

Cool, I like smash outline of map, I already made map with smash outline, but your idea more easy from my idea, you are great artist of maps, I used Adobe illustrator with arcgis to get a beautiful map, there is plugin you can add it to Adobe illustrator "Avenza Mapublisher" it amazing tool to great beautiful map.

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

Thanks Ahmed!

[@t.p.1823]

Subscribed.

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

Thanks!

[@mdnahinalam7339]

That's awesome. Can you please tell the source of these historical map?

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

you can see me build this map in the video.

[@RubenKemp]

@@JohnNelsonMaps i think he might have meant the maps you showed as examples in the first minute :) It can be very difficult to find high resolution maps on google if you dont know where to look.

[@JohnNelsonMaps]

@@RubenKemp oh of course! Sorry, I misunderstood. These examples come from the David Rumsey Map Collection