Refresh a map series

When you make changes to the data or bookmarks driving a map series, you may need to refresh the map series before those changes are visible in the view. Refreshing re-creates the pages using current map series parameters. Some data changes, such as editing the rotation field value, are automatically picked up by map series, but other changes don't appear until the map series has been refreshed.

Refresh if any of the following occurred after you created a spatial map series:

  • Features were added to or deleted from the index layer.
  • Edits were made to the sort field values.
  • Edits were made to the name field values.
  • Edits were made to any field being used by the map series as an index layer feature that drives the current geographic extent.

Refresh if one of the following occurred after you created a bookmark map series:

  • Time was removed from the bookmark.
  • Range was removed from the bookmark.

To refresh your map series, click the Refresh Map Series button Refresh in the Map Frames group of the Insert tab.

Layout elements

A map series does not lock any layout elements on the page or any layout properties. You make changes as normal, and the changes are applied automatically. Refreshing the map series is not necessary when changing layout elements. Remember that a map series is created from a single layout. Any change made to a layout on one page is applied automatically to all the other pages. For example, if you change the scale bar to meters instead of kilometers on the first page of the map series, all other pages also show the scale bar in meters.

Index layer for spatial map series

A spatial map series does not restrict you from editing the properties, values, or fields of the index layer.

These changes can include the following:

  • Edit field values
  • Add or remove fields (including from table joins)
  • Add or remove a table join
  • Change the properties of a table join
  • Change a field alias

If you're editing a field or attribute that the map series is not currently using, your edits do not adversely affect the pages and you do not need to refresh the pages when you're done. If you're editing attributes used by the name or sort field, you should refresh the map series. If you're editing attributes used by the rotation, spatial reference, page number, or scale fields, you don't need to refresh the pages unless you're editing the attributes of the index layer feature driving the current map extent. In this case, you should refresh the map series.

The field drop-down lists on the Map Series tab of the Layout Properties window reflect all these changes automatically. They show newly added fields, newly joined fields, or newly applied field aliases. Conversely, the drop-down lists do not show deleted fields.

If you delete a field currently being used, the map series uses the next valid field, or, in the case of rotation, a value of 0 is used. To see changes, refresh the map series.

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